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REX CHRISTUS
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REX CHRISTUS
AN OUTLINE STUDY OF CHINA
BY
ARTHUR H. SMITH
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
STRATFORD & GREEN
BOOKSELLERS
642-644 SO. MAIN ST.
LOS ANGELES
14
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COPTBIQHT, 1903,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published August, 1903. Reprinted
February, 1904.
PUBLISHED FOR THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS.
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J. S. Cnshing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
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STATEMENT fj" OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON THE ^ UNITED STUDY OF MISSIONS
^ The plan of the United Study of Missions, which was
•^- inaugurated at the Ecumenical Conference in 1900, is no
C- longer an experiment. The remarkable and increasing suc-
^ cess of the enterprise encourages us in presenting this, the
third text-book of our series. The sales of the first of the
series, "Via Christi," by Louise Manning Hodgkins, have
amounted to forty thousand copies, while the second book,
"Lux Christi, An Outline Study of India," by Caroline
Atwater Mason, has met with even greater success.
Dr. Smith is too well known as our foremost writer on China to need any introduction. He has been ably assisted by Miss Frances J. Dyer, who has edited the book and prepared the supplementary material.
China is in the foreground of the political world to-day, and the interests of the Kingdom of God in this vast empire demand the thoughtful, prayerful study of all Christians. May this little volume help toward that end.
Mrs. NORMAN MATHER WATERBURY, Chairmaw,
Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass.
Miss E. HARRIET STANWOOD,
70k Congi-egational Eouae, Boston, Mass.
Miss ELLEN C. PARSONS,
Presbyterian Building, 166 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Mrs. J. T. GRACEY,
in Pearl Street, Rochester, K. Y.
Mm. HARRIET L. SCUDDER,
Church Missions Souse, hth Avenue and 33d Street, New Torh City.
Miss CLEMENTINA BUTLER,
Secretary and Treasurer,
Newton Centre, Mass. V
PREFACE
The object of this book is by no means to tell a little of everything that ought to be known about China, but rather so to present a few selected topics as to incite to a genuine study of the subject, by which alone it can be expected to make upon the mind its due im- pression. Lack of experience in the prepa- ration of manuals of this sort, together with limitations of time and the demands of a large parish, must be the inadequate apology for the many sins of omission which the discerning reader will not fail to discover. Standard •authorities, such as Dr. Williams's "Middle Kingdom " and Professor Giles's " Historic China " have been often cited, sometimes with- out quotation marks. The reader should have at hand Mr. Beach's indispensable " Geography and Atlas of Missions," and make excursions in whatever direction seems most inviting, for which helps are abundant.
The vast bulk of the Chinese Empire helps to disguise the fact that for some years it has been making rapid progress, even at times when to the eye nothing was apparent but ret-
vii
viii PBEFACE
rogression. Adequately to treat of the present transition state of Ciiina would have required much ampler space than could be given in the closing chapters.
There has never been a time when a larger and fuller knowledge of what China is to be was more necessary than to-day. There is no reason why every reader of this book should not contribute something toward the right settlement of some of the greatest and most difficult questions confronting the Christian world at the opening of the twentieth century.
A. H. S.
P'ang Chuang, Shantung, China, April, 1903.
CONTENTS
PAGK
Statement of the Centkal Committee . . . v Preface vii
CHAPTER I
A Self-centred Empire
Physical Features and Population — Cultivation of the Soil — Waterways and Loess — Climate and Food Products — Minerals — China's Rulers — The Leg- endary Period — The Chou Dynasty — The Tsin Dynasty — The Han Dynasty — A Dark Period
— The T'ang Dynasty — Tlie Sung Dynasty — The Mongol Dynasty — The Ming Dynasty — ■ Th'>, Man-
chu Dynasty 1
The Provinces of China 29
Significant Sentences ...... 39
CHAPTER II
The Religions of China
Teachings of Confucius — Foundation Principles — Weak Spots in Confucianism — Universality of Temples — Comparison between Confucianism and Christianity — Taoism — Modern Taoism — Root of the Boxer Madness — Chinese Buddhism
— The Dominant Religion — Temples to the Three Religions — Mohammedanism in China — Secret Sects 44
Significant Sentences 80
iz
CONTENTS
CHAPTER III The Pbople of China
PA8E
Solidarity of Cliinese Society — Fixity of Residence — Unity in Variety — Industry and Poverty — Puz- zling Problems — Sentiment toward Foreigners
— Patriotism — Conservatism — How a Cliinese Scholar views Christianity — Race Characteristics
— Talent for Indirection — Suspicion and Distrust
— Untruthfulness and Insincerity — Saving One's "Face" — Christianity a Solvent . ... 84
Watmarks in the History of Missions in China . Ill
Significant Sentences 116
CHAPTER IV
Christian Missions. Part I. From Earliest
Times till near the Close of the
Nineteenth Century
Nestorian and Roman Catholic Missions — The Situa- tion To-day — Protestant Missions — The Pioneer Society — A True Yokefellow — Strong Foimda- tions Laid — Arrival of Americans — Beginning of Medical Work — The Second Period, 1842 to 1860
— Splendid Reinforcements — Translation of the Scriptures — Treachery in Treaties — The Third Period, 1860 to 1895 — Evidences of a New Era
— The China Inland Mission — Modus of Mission Work — The Second Step — The Peripatetic Preacher — Churches in Embryo — The Doctor
and the Dispensary 120
Significant Sbntbnces 162
CHAPTER V
CHRigTiAN Missions. Part II. On the Thresh- old OF the Twentieth Century
Woman's Work — The Educational Work — Day and Boarding Schools — Influence on the Community
CONTENTS
PAGF
— A Birthday Gift to the Empress Dowager — Kin- dergartens— Bible Women and Other Workers — Medical Work — The First Medical College for Women — General Summary of the Third Period
— The Great Famine — Two Notable Gatherings
— Bible and Tract Societies — Literary Labors — Power of the Printing-Press — The Fourth Period, 1895 to 1903 — A Wonderful Awakening — The Anti-Foot-binding Society — Other Reforms — China in Convulsion — The Great Boxer Ris- ing — Effect on the Native Church — The Aftermath 167
Significant Sentences 216
CHAPTER VI
The Open Door of Opportunity
A Modern Miracle — A United Church — Power of Re- generated Lives — Educational Reforms — Educa- tional Needs — The New China .... 221
Significant Sentences 240
APPENDIX
List of Leading Missionary Periodicals . . 245
Additional Articles in Periodicals . . . 246
List of Twenty Books ...... 247
Statistics of Protestant Missions in China . . 249
Index 253
EEX CHRISTUS
CHAPTER I
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE
The country which we call China, but which its own people designate as the Central Empire, is one of the oldest and mightiest kingdoms of the earth. Its hoary antiquity stretches away into the mists of fable for unknown thousands of years, but that part of its history which is well within the bounds of certainty takes it back to the early dawn of civilization. Its situation, on the eastern edge of the great continent of Asia, makes it a natural and an inevitable centre of influence over many adjacent lands ; and this has been abundantly illustrated in its history, which has been that of superiority to all its neighbors. China lies almost entirely in the temperate zone, and in what the annals of the human race have proved to be the belt of power, within which all the peoples which have made a deep mark on the tablets of time have had their habitation.
Physical Features and Population. — China faces the east. Her mountains rise in height as one goes west, and it is from them that the great
B 1
2 BEX CHRISTUS
rivers of this part of the globe take their rise, the Yang-tse, and the Yellow River. One of them is called China's Girdle, and pours an enormous stream of water every second into the Yellow Sea, draining a large portion of the empire. The other is well styled China's Sorrow, "bringing from the great plateaus of the desert of Gobi continents of sand and yellow mud, which are turned into the sea to shoal its waters and to make new land, while the floods burst their banks and devastate the whole province." In the north- eastern portion of China Proper, by which is meant the Eighteen Provinces, stretches one of the great plains of the earth, which occupies a large part of several provinces, from the moun- tains north and west of Peking to the southern side of the Yang-tse.
Within an area averaging from 200 to 400 miles in width, it is estimated that a popula- tion is to be found numbering more than 170,000,000, so that parts of this region are the most densely populated in the world. China's millions are literally uncounted, and until some distant day, when western modes of adminis- tration are adopted, are likely to remain so. Without entering into the somewhat compli- cated question of the probable population of the empire, it may be suggested that since all censuses are but " a pagoda of guesses," one must be governed by general probabilities in
A SELF-CENTRED EM I' IRE 3
lieu of relative certainties. Perhaps the total of 400,000,000 may not be too large, but 360,- 000,000 is perhaps a more reasonable estimate.
The coast line of China is 2000 miles in length, well furnished with excellent harbors. The Chinese have never been a maritime people, but their country has unrivalled facilities for intercourse with all the rest of mankind. The area of China Proper is only about one-third of the whole empire, or about the size of that part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It is seven times as large as France, fifteen times the size of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and nearly half as large as the whole of Europe. Whence came the stoe\ from which the population of this land is descended has not yet been deter- mined, but it is known that they first appeared at the northwest, along the banks of the Yellow River, to the vicinity of which the earliest set- tlements were largely confined. They were a pastoral people, as is evidenced, among other ways, in the language. The word signifying "righteousness," " justice," "rectitude," is com- posed of the ideographs for me (or my) and sheep, denoting that the one who was content with his own cattle and sheep was the standard of virtue.
Cultivation of the Soil. — The Chinese people are themselves a conglomerate composed of many different strains. It was not till the T'ang
4 EEX CHRISTUS
dynasty (620-907 a.d.) that the southern por- tions of what is now China were incorporated into the common rule, and this was effected but gradually. To this day the southerners call themselves the "Men of T'ang." From their first experiments in the cultivation of the soil the Chinese showed great skill in adapting themselves to the peculiarities of the particular region in which they settled. What- ever was once gained as a part of the common stock of experience was handed down from age to age, and has become almost a second nature. Perhaps no people have greater skill as irri- gators of the soil. They know how to level a tract of land in such a way that the water will always run in the desired direction ; how to divert streams where they are needed ; how to raise water from lower levels by the Persian wheel, the screw of Archimedes, by the well- sweep, the windlass, and by willow baskets slung on ropes held by two men who, with dextrous toes, throw the water from the surface of the river to the cultivated gardens above. Much of the farming is practically gardening because the holdings are so small, and the owner is quite aware of the importance of the rotation of crops, and is incomparably better acquainted than most of his Occidental neighbors with wise ways of fertilization. But for the incessant economy practised in all parts of the empire in the preparation and use of " poudrette," China
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 5
would never have been able to raise enough food for the support of its uncounted millions. Waterways and Loess= -• Aside from the two great rivers already mentioned, the empire is abundantly supplied with large streams, which, from ancient times, have been avenues for a great internal commerce. The Chinese have always shown the greatest skill in the opening of artificial waterways, and all China was interpenetrated with canals at a time when one such existed in Europe. In the central parts of the eighteen provinces this is espe- cially the case, the ramifications of these boat roads being intricate and innumerable. A large part of the northern area of China is covered to a greater or less extent with a peculiar soil named, from an analogous phenom- enon in the valley of the Rhine, "loess." It is an extremely porous, brownish-colored earth, readily pulverized by the fingers, and capable of becoming an impalpable dust of great penetrat- ing power. The regions where this peculiar soil occurs abound in cave dwellings cut out of the loam, photographs of which are to be found in many books of travel. The appear- ance of an extensive loess formation, like that to be met with in the mountains separating Shansi from Chihli, with its singularly regular terrace formation, interspersed with many wide and deep chasms, is one of the remarkable sights of China. The occurrence of this soil,
6 REX CHBI8TUS
which was for a long time a geological puzzle, has much to do with the great population sup- ported in regions where it occurs, for it is capable of producing immense crops without aid of fertilization.
Climate and Food Products. — In a country stretching through more than twenty-five de- grees of latitude, it may readily be seen that there is every variety of climate, from the dreary cold winters of Manchuria to the damp chill of the southeast in winter, alternating with torrid heats in summer. The variations of temperature in many parts of the Great Plain amount to a hundred degrees Fahren- heit for the year, but sudden alternations of heat and cold are far less common than in the same belt throughout North America. In most parts of China there is a rainy season and a dry, but the confines are not as dis- tinctly marked as in India. The rains begin at the southeast of China in March and ex- tend northward, till by July the whole of the Great Plain ought to have its share. When- ever the supply is delayed or is inadequate, the greatest anxiety is everywhere felt, for drought is the synonym of famine.
The food supply of the empire is of the most varied description, including a wide range of cereals and fruits, from those cultivated in the extreme north to the tropical treasures of the south. Rice has always been a staple
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 7
food of the Chinese, although in the northern portions it is a mere luxury,, and, except by name, often altogether unknown. Wheat is almost universal, and is considered the best food known to man, while millet, va- rious kinds of sorghum, barley, buckwheat, oats, and maize are to be found in different regions. Sugar-cane is raised in the south. The magnifi- cent grass which we know as the bamboo is one of nature's best gifts to China, as to many other lands, and it is a current proverb that no one should live where it will not thrive. Its varieties are endless and its uses innumerable. Its shoots are employed as food, and with a sweet syrup as a confectionery. Its shafts are put to countless service in the construction of dwellings, and in making nearly every article needed for the use of man or woman. The character for bamboo written over that of a ruler means " to govern," showing the conception of what a magistrate ought to be ; and the verb " to bamboo " may connote every grade of pun- ishment, from a slight beating up to the extinc- tion of life itself. The tallow tree is one of the eccentricities of China, of which the fullest use has been made.
The wealth of the provision made for man in this great empire is well matched by the almost unequalled talent displayed by man for discovering ways in which the varied needs of the race may be met by the illimitable
8 REX CHRISTUS
resources placed at its disposal. The Chinese are not keen sportsmen, but they greatly excel in fish culture, and they have long been famous for their success in making rivers, streams, and the great ocean tributary to their claims. It is not without reason, in view of the lavish gifts bestowed upon them, that the Chinese consider themselves the most favored people on the earth. China is, in fact, an empire which might be practically independent of the rest of the world, as for so many ages it has been, — a circumstance which has done much toward fostering that over- weening national conceit which has often brought on conflicts with other nations.
Minerals. — The mineral wealth of China is to a large extent unexplored, but enough is known to make it probable tliat it is in excess of that of any other land, except, perhaps, the United States. The coal deposits in particular, which are found in immediate contiguity to illimitable ■supplies of the best iron ore, are probably the largest in the world, and the coal-bearing area has been estimated at not less than 419,000 square miles, unequally distributed through every one of the eighteen provinces. Iron and coal are the basis of our present civilization, and the apparently inexhaustible supply in the Chinese Empire must ultimately affect in ways not yet evident the destiny of the human race. It is not the so-called useful minerals only which are to be found, but almost all others,
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 9
with the exception of platinum. Gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver, could be produced in enormous quantities with the improved methods used elsewhere. But accompanying this vast and immeasurable potential wealth is the blighting superstition of " Feng-shui " (literally wind-water), which contraindicates the disturbance of the soil beyond a certain depth, lest the " earth-dragon " be offended and nameless ills ensue.
The province of Ssuch'uan has salt wells of great depth, from which, with rude machinery and clumsy skill, is extracted the brine which is afterward evaporated into an article of commerce. In the province of Shansi there is a great lake of dry salt which furnishes a supply for a large region. Along the coast salt is obtained from the water of the sea, and, its sale being a government monopoly, is an important source of revenue. Great as are the resources of the empire, it is prob- able that but a fraction of them has as yet been put to use. They still await that scien- tific development without which they are largely useless to their owners, and to mankind at large.
Into this magnificent inheritance the earliest colonists came, and in possession of it they have ever since remained. The Chinese are the only people who have never left their origi- nal seats, and who, having once entered upon
10 BEX CHRISTUS
certain lines of race activity, have never been deflected from them.
China's Rulers
A brief recapitulation in merest outline of the history of this remarkable people may fitly accompany a sketch of the empire in miniature.
It is not surprising that the uncritical Chi- nese annalists have amused themselves, and flattered the national vanity, with a catalogue of long ages of mythical monarchs, who reigned under impossible conditions for fabulous periods. No actual weight is attached even by Chinese writers to these tales of prehistoric epochs, which simply serve to fill in what would other- wise be blanks, in the manner of the geogra- phers of whom Swift complained that they
" O'er uninhabitable downs Place elephants foi* want of towns."
The Legendary Period. — Every Chinese is ready to talk of the good old days of Yao, and Shun, his successor, when the morals of the people were so ideal that doors and win- dows were not closed at night, and nothing dropped on the road was picked up by any one but the owner. According to the notions of Chinese chronologists, the close of the legendary period would bring one to the beginning of the twenty-second century B.C., when the Hsai dynasty begins with the great
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 11
Yu, who by his engineering skill drained away a terrible inundation. The Emperor Shun was made the head of the state on account of his filial piety, " in recognition of which, wild beasts used to come voluntarily and drag his plough for him, while birds of the air would guard his grain from the depredations of in- sects." Even as far back as this period there was a comparatively advanced state of civili- zation. The system of knotted cords as a means of notation of ideas had given place to notches on wood, and these in turn to rude out- lines of natural objects. It is from a limited number of such that the ideographs of the Chi- nese language in use to-day have sprung, but not without many intermediate processes of alteration. There was in the earlier ages a " tadpole " character which is now illegible, and survives in but a few examples.
There was at that time no such thing as paper, the only books being bamboo tablets inscribed with a sharp stylus, but none are now extant. This was followed by writing on silk, but ink in the modern shape (hard blocks rubbed up with water for the use of the soft brush used in writing) was introduced much later.
The Chou Dynasty. — The Chou dynasty, where we are at last on comparatively firm his- torical ground, began in the year 1122 B.C., and extended until 255 B.C. During these nine
12 REX CHEISTUS
centuries the history of European nations was in its infancy. The Trojan War had just ended, and the monarchy of Israel had begun. The whole brilliant period of Grecian history was contemporaneous with this dynasty, and in it the Eternal City was founded. What the Chinese are to-day has its roots in the ancient period of the Chous. Their language, their ideas, their administration of their government, and above all their elaborate ceremonial, with- out which China would not be China, all take their origin here. So, too, with their national literature and their great sages, Confucius and Mencius, the one born 551 B.C., and the other 372 B.C., each of them in what is now the prov- ince of Shantung. Few individuals in the an- nals of the human race have more powerfully influenced so large a number of their fellow-men as these two Chinese, and, what is more re- markable, their authority once established has never been disputed.
In these early days war was carried on with bowmen on the one side and spearmen on the other. " The centre was occupied by chariots, each drawn by three or four horses, harnessed abreast. Swords, daggers, shields, iron-headed clubs some five or six feet in length and weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds, huge iron hooks, drums, cymbals, gongs, horns, banners and streamers innumer- able, were also among the equipment of war."
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 13
From this descriptive snatch, the discerning reader is able to recognize the root of much of the noisy, showy, and tawdry display which is the accompaniment of every Chinese public function to-day.
The Tsin Dynasty. — The Chou dynasty broke down finally, though it had lasted for almost a millennium. It was followed by the reign of one of the greatest men China has ever produced, who arrogated to himself the title of the First Emperoi- (Ch'in Shih Huang), and who raised the state of Ch'in, at the head of which he had been for twenty-six years, to the sover- eign place among the various subordinate king- doms, and then swept away the entire feudal system, by means of which the Chou emperors had divested themselves of the cares of govern- ment, and divided the empire, including vast tracts which he had annexed on the south, into thirty-six provinces, " thus effecting a revolu- tion which, after a lapse of 2000 years, history has seen repeated in Japan."
This restless Napoleon of China despatched an expedition to look for some mysterious islands off the coast. He was the builder of the Great Wall, which skirts the eighteen provinces for a distance of nearly 1400 miles, from Shan Hai Kuan on the present Gulf of Pechili, to the Great Desert at the western terminus of the empire. This gigantic work, which was the continuation of other defences already existing
14 BEX CHBISTUS
against the outer barbarians, was completed by- means of forced labor and incredible cruelty in the space of ten years. It is difficult to understand how such a task could have been accomplished at all, and the fact that it was so, has been rightly regarded as an incidental proof of a large population. The boundless ambition of the First Emperor was not satisfied with these great works of statesmanship and of public utility, but he thirsted to have all liter- ature recreated with his reign. He issued an order for the destruction of all books (with cer- tain exceptions), but finding his literati in- tractable, he caused many hundreds of them to be buried in pits, and the books were burned. The prodigious memories of the Chinese schol- ars who survived the early fall of the emperor enabled them to reproduce the greater part of the works destroyed, but many of them were in an incomplete condition.
The name of this monarch has been held in detestation by the scholars of China ever since, and though his consolidation of the empire re- mained, the death of his son, after a brief reign of three years, put an end to the dynasty.
The Han Dynasty. — Under different names this lasted for a period of about four hundred years, nearly evenly divided by the opening of the Christian era. Our Lord was born in the first year of the Emperor P'ing Ti, " Prince of Peace," a coincidence often remarked upon.
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 15
During this long period the empire was becom- ing more settled, and was advancing in civiliza- tion. There was a general revival of learning, and the books so precious to scholars were rescued from the hiding-places to which they had been banished under the destructive First Emperor. Ink was invented, and it was used to compile voluminous commentaries on the recov- ered classics, which were now printed on paper made from the bark of trees.
In the latter portion of the second centur}' B.C. lived the Herodotus of China, Ssu Ma Ch'ien, who composed the first connected and comprehensive survey of the records of China, beginning from the mythical period of the "Yellow Emperor," and extending to about a century before the Christian era. A great lexicographical work called the " Shuo Wen " also appeared within this period, which shows that the principle of phonetic formation of char- acters was the same then as at present. It was during the Han dynasty that the Buddhist reli- gion was brought to China, in response to the request of envoys sent in consequence of an imperial dream. It is supposed that a Jewish colony entered China at the same time, but neither then nor at any subsequent period did it attract serious attention from the Chinese, who nicknamed these singular people the "sinew-plucking sect." It is from the Han period that literary degrees take their rise, and
16 REX CHBISTUS
perpetual rank was conferred on the descend- ants of Confucius, whose teachings at this time made their way to Japan, where they held undisputed sway until within the past few decades.
A Dark Period. — The Han was followed by the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, a time of bloodshed and civil war, mainly of interest to us at this day on account of a celebrated histori- cal novel from which it takes its name, parts of which are repeated in tea-shops and enacted in plays all over China. The characters in this stirring drama are better known by far than contemporary statesmen, of whom the common people never hear anything and for whom if they should hear they would not care. After the Three Kingdoms ensued a variety of minor dynasties, the enumeration of which would only serve to tease the I'eader, the appearance and the disappearance alike not affecting the gen- eral progress of events.
The T'ang Dynasty. — The next great period is the T'ang dynasty, from 620 to 907 A.D., dur- ing which time, as Dr. Williams remarks, " China was probably the most civilized country on earth; the darkest days of the West, when Europe was wrapped in the ignorance and degradation of the Middle Ages, formed the brightest era of the East. They exercised a humanizing effect on all the surrounding countries, and led their inhabitants to see the benefits and understand
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 17
the management of a government where the laws were above the officers." The T'ang is one of the most brilUant epochs in the history of the Flowery Land, and its second emperor, T'ai Tsung " may be regarded as the most accomplished in the Chinese annals, — famed alike for his wisdom and nobleness, his con- quests and good government, his temperance, cultivated tastes, and patronage of literary men." He established schools and instituted a system of literary examinations. He had the Confucian classics published under the super- vision of the most learned men in the empire, and took great pains to prepare and preserve the historical annals of the recent dynasties. His broad dominions extended to the borders of Persia and the Caspian Sea, embracing large parts of Central Asia.
The reign of his son (Kao Tsung) was as imbecile as that of his father had been glorious. His empress obtained control over him, and after his death, for twenty-one years usurped the throne, murdering all who opposed her will, and assuming such titles as Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother, and Divine Sovereign. By a palace conspiracy her son at length removed her, and she died in seclusion at the age of eighty-one years. About the year 722 a census of the fifteen provinces is said to have given a total of more than 52,884,000.
It was in the T'ang period that Buddhism
0
18 BEX CHRISTUS
attained its greatest successes, the whole land being filled with its temples and its worship, one of the later emperors determining to receive with the highest honors a bone of the founder, Shakya- muna. Against this one of his ablest ministers made a famous protest, the text of which is familiar to all scholars even to-day, and is regarded as a masterpiece of argument and invective. The result was the banishment of the remonstrant to the remote and barbarous regions of the south, near the present port of Swatow, from which he was, however, recalled later, and has since been canonized under the title of Prince of Literature.
Only six years after the Hegira of the Prophet, the followers of Mohammed are supposed to have entered China. In the following century a force of Arab soldiers was sent to China to assist in quelling an insurrection, and as a reward they were allowed to settle in the coun- try. During this dynasty the greatest Chinese poets flourished, and a complete collection of the works of the epoch are arranged in 48,900 pieces in 900 books. The use of paper money dates from this time, and it is thought that the originals of the Court Circular, or what is now called the Pekirig Grazette, are here to be found. Tradition has also assigned to this dynasty the beginning of the almost universal practice of binding the feet of girls, but there is no docu- mentary evidence as to its introduction. Its firm
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 19
grip on the people is one of the most singular facts in this land of strange phenomena.
The Sung Dynasty. — The Sung dynasty, which after a few decades of minor rulers suc- ceeded the T'angs, is divided into the Northern Sung and the Southern Sung, having its capital at what is now Hangchou in Chekiang, in order to be safer from the troublesome Tartars, by whom the dynasty was at length overthrown, after a duration of 167 for the former and 153 years for the latter, each branch furnishing nine emperors.
The period is notable chiefly for its literary men, not for its rulers, especially for Chu Hsi, the great commentator on the Chinese classics, whose interpretations have totally obliterated those of the scholars of the Han, and have been the sole and only Confucian orthodoxy ever since, a literary triumph which for thoroughness and permanence has few parallels in history. A historian named Ssu Ma Kuang produced one of those works which for voluminousness are typically Chinese, being completed in 294 books. Another historian called Ma Tuan Lin wrote a history in 348 books. It is productions of this description which give point to the Chinese aphorism that "In order to know the Ancient and the Modern it is necessary to read five cart loads of books."
Another noted name in the Sung dynasty is that of a socialistic statesman who introduced
20 BEX CHRISTUS
plans which were many hundred years in advance of his time. He wished to have the whole body of the people liable to military drill and for service in time of need, and he devised a system of state loans to farmers, in order to supply them with more capital. His schemes were disallowed, and have become way-marks in the Chinese desert to show where not to go. The little Tri- metrical Classic which is the first book put into the hands of schoolboys on entering school, also dates from this time, as well as the authorized list of Chinese surnames, now also a part of the routine instruction of every pupil.
The Mongol Dynasty. — ^The next dynasty was a relatively short one of about eighty years, and is of interest because it was the first time that the outer barbarian had gained the imperial throne. The new incumbents were Mongols, under the noted Genghis Khan, who occupied Peking in the year 1264. The great Kublai Khan, who held the sway of the empire for fifteen years, was an enlightened monarch who did much to consolidate his rule by wise plans, but the Mongol material upon which he had to work was incomparably inferior to the Chinese, and the dynasty came to an end after a few inglorious reigns, and was supplanted by the Mings. It was in the Mongol or Yuan dynasty that Marco Polo came to China, and most of what we know of the mediaeval potentate, Ku- blai Khan, comes from the marvellously vivid
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 21
narrative of the great Venetian, whose work had so little acceptance during his lifetime that when on his dying bed he was urged to repent of all his sins, and to confess the falsehoods which he had told about Cathay ; which, being an honest reporter, he stoutly refused to do. He visited large parts of the empire and had a varied experience both as guest and as an offi- cial. His patron, Kublai Khan, greatly extended the work of the dissolute Yang Ti (of the Sui dynasty, 605 a.d.) and united the Yang-tse and Yellow Rivers by the Grand Canal, one of the greatest and most useful of China's internal improvements.
The Ming Dynasty. — It is a striking fact, well enunciated by Dr. Williams, that amid all the revolutions in China none have been based upon a principle. Each one has been a mere change of masters, with no better appreciation than before of the rights of the subject, or of the powers and duties of the rulers. From the standpoint of the Chinese this is due to the fact that the original principles upon which the empire was founded were ideally perfect, and all that remained was to put them into practice. Whenever the Son of Heaven fails to do this, he has lost " Heaven's decree," and is by a divine right turned out to make room for another who has received it.
The founder of the Ming dynasty was a man named Chu Muan Chang, who had experienced
22 BEX CHBISTUS
the deepest poverty, and had at one time been a Buddhist priest. His parents and elder brother had died of starvation, and being too poor to put them in coffins, he was forced to bury them in straw. The last emperor of the Mongols had degenerated into a voluptuary and was in the hands of his ministers a mere puppet. The great abilities of Chu enabled him by rapid stages to seize the sceptre of power, and in the year 1368 he mounted the Dragon Throne, taking the title of Hung Wu, by which name he is best known to foreigners. This, it will be recollected, was a century and a quarter before " Columbus crossed the ocean blue," but to the Chinese of to-day, accustomed to measure time by millenniums, it appears a period about as distant as " before the war " to an American. The new emperor, in addition to his military genius, showed almost equal skill in the admin- istration of the empire, and also became a liberal patron of literature and education. He organ- ized the present system of examinations, re- stored the dress of the T'ang dynasty, published a penal code, abolished punishment by mutila- tion, regulated taxation, put the coinage upon a proper basis with government notes and cash as equal currencj^. The capital was fixed at Nanking, but the son of Hung Wu wrested the power from his nephew to whom it had been given, and removed the seat of government to the ancient Cambaluc of the Mongols, the mod-
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 23
ern Peking, taking the title of Yung Lo, by far the best known of the sixteen Ming emperors. In his progress to seize Peking he committed enormous excesses, and so devastated all the regions through Avhich he passed that not a man, woman or child, not a cat or dog, remained alive. This is popularly referred to by every one as his "sweeping the north." As a result it be- came necessary to bring compulsory immigrants to Chihli and Sb.antung, in order to repeople the land, and every family will tell you that they " came from " some remote place, such as Hung Tung Hsien in Shansi, or Lai Chou Fu in Shantung, some nineteen generations ago, back of which, unfortunately, their family registers do not go !
The incursions of the Tartars from the north were incessant, but Yung Lo found time amid many activities to patronize literature on a scale hitherto unprecedented. At his behest a gigan- tic encyclopsedia was prepared, intended to col- lect in one work the substance of all the classical, historical, philosopliical, and literary works hitherto published. The task was intrusted to a committee of 3 presidents, 5 chief direc- tors, 20 sub-directors, and 2169 subordinates. The work was finished in the year 1407, con- taining in all 22,877 books besides the table of contents, which occupied sixty books, the whole being called Yung Lo Ta Tien or the Institutes of Yung Lo- Only two copies were ever made
24 BEX CHRISTUS
One was destroyed in a great fire in Nanking, and the other was ruined or captured in the burning of the Han-lin Yuan in Peking, during the memorable siege in that city in the summer of 1900. Several hundred volumes only were rescued, and are now dispersed all over the world, a melancholy end to one of the greatest intellectual labors even of the Chinese.
The sixteen emperors of the Ming period ended their rule in 1644, having like all their predecessors lost the " Decree of Heaven." The feuds with the Tartars were incessant, and dur- ing one of the insurrections the latter entered Peking unopposed, and their leader was quite ready to accept the invitation to ascend the throne, — which he did. The last Ming emperor stabbed his daughter and hung himself on a pine tree on the east side of the " Coal Hill" in the palace grounds in Peking. During the foreign occupation of that city this tree was pointed out to visitors, still flourishing, but blisfhted on the side where the Son of Heaven ended his inglorious reign. The leading Chinese general assented to the occupation of the throne by the Manchu Tartars, who called themselves the Ch'ing, or Great Pure Dynasty, on con- dition that no Chinese woman should be taken into the imperial seraglio, and that the first place in literary degrees should never be given to a Manchu. It was also agreed that while women should be allowed to retain their former
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 25
style of dress, the men should adopt that of the Manchus, although suffered to bury their dead in the Ming costume. A part of the stipulation as to the dress of the men was the acceptance of the Manchu queue, which for a long period in the southeastern portions of the empire was strongly resisted. Even to this day in those regions a turban is worn, the survival of an effort to conceal what was then felt to be a national disgrace.
The Manchu Dynasty. — It was only a quarter of a century after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock that the Manchus began their long rule over the magnificent possession into which they had come almost without effort. The second emperor, whose style is K'ang Hsi, came to the throne when he was but eight years of age and took the government into his own hands at fourteen, making a striking and instructive parallel with the history of Louis XIV of France, their two reigns being con- temporaneous for more than half a century.
K'ang Hsi was undoubtedly one of the com- paratively few really great monarchs who have ruled the Celestial Empire. He greatly ex- tended his frontier on the west, consolidated his power everywhere, and established regulations which have contributed to the peace and pros- perity of China ever since. He was indefatiga- ble in his devotion to state affairs, liberal in his expenditure for public ends, and anxious to
26 BEX CHRISTUS
promote the welfare of his people. He has been termed the most successful patron of literature the world, has ever seen, causing to be published four great works of continental scope, any one of which would have distinguished any ruler, aside from the great lexicon to which he has given his name. He governed China for the almost unprecedented period of sixty-one years, and was succeeded by his son, Yung Cheng, in 1722.
He in turn was followed by his famous son, Ch'ien Lung (or Kien Lung), who, after ruling sixty years, resigned the throne for the very Chinese reason that it would not be filial to outdo his grandfather ! tie was also a patron of literature, and a poet of great merit, his productions reaching the astonishing total of 33,950, many of which however were very short. Like K'ang Hsi he extended the boundaries of the empire, but wasted revenues on the support of large armies. He received embassies from the Russians, the Dutch, and the English, which tended to confirm the Chinese in their inefface- able conviction that China is the real centre of the universe, and all under the heavens merely tributary, — a theory which was to bear bitter fruits in the ensuing century.
The next emperor, Chia Ch'ing (Kia King), was dissolute and superstitious, and his reign of twenty-five years was disturbed by rebellions on land and pirates by sea. He was followed iu
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 27
1820 by his son Tao Kuang, during whose reign China had to face unprecedented troubles, — a rebellion in Turkestan, an insurrection in For- mosa, and a rising in Kuangtung. But all these combined were trifling when compared with the dark cloud rising on the horizon from the pres- ence of the outer barbarians, who had been for some centuries trading at Canton, but who now broke out into what the Chinese considered to be "open rebellion."
This was the Opium War between Great Britain and China, in which. Mobile there was much to regret on the foreign side of the case, there was abundant reason for the conflict aside from the special issues on which it was waged. It was terminated by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, of which Dr. Williams has justly remarked that whether regarded from the political, com- mercial, moral, or intellectual standpoint, it was " one of the turning-points in the history of mankind, involving the welfare of all nations in its wide-reaching consequences." By it, in ad- dition to Canton, were opened the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai, — the promise and potency of the ultimate opening of all China which has not yet been effected.
Just as this emperor quitted the stage the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion broke out, which rav- aged a large part of the empire, and shook the dynasty to its foundations, resulting in the loss of perhaps twenty millions of lives. This, after
28 BEX CHBISTUS
fifteen years of ruin, was finally put down by the aid of foreigners, of whom General Charles George Gordon was the chief.
In the inglorious reign of the Emperor Hsien Feng another war with foreign powers took place, ending in the capture of Peking (October, 1860) by the allied British and French forces, and the flight of the emperor, who died on a hunting excursion in his ancestral home in Man- churia in August, 1860. The next incumbent was a mere child, the son of an imperial concu- bine, who took the style of T'ung Chih, but he had barely attained his majority when he died of smallpox, January, 1875. The affairs of state had been in the hands of the empress mother, and the empress dowager, together with Prince Kung, a brother of the late emperor.
Anotlier infant was now set upon the throne and another regency began, the events of which are fresh in the memories of those who know anything of China ; but for those who do not, it would be difficult to summarize them in the space at our disposal. There was a sort of war with France in 1844, in which the Chinese were not decisively beaten. There was another far more serious conflict with Japan ten years later in which China was humbled to the dust; but her semi-Bourbon leaders learned nothing and forgot everything, and the country drifted on. The attempted reforms of the emperor in
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A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 29
1898 ended in his virtual dethronement and practical imprisonment. The union of a great variety of causes brought about a profound dis- content in the minds of millions of his subjects, which resulted in 1899-1900 in the outbreak of the most singular crusade in the annals of man- kind, ending in the capture of Peking by the allies, August 14th, 1900. The court fled to distant Si Ngan Fu, long the capital of the empire under many dynasties, but returned nearly a year and a half later, in what was vir- tually a triumphal progress, to continue the difh- cult task of confronting the twentieth century with the ideas and the ideals which would have been wholly appropriate to the T'ang and the Sung.
THE PROVINCES OF CHINA
It is convenient to have a general conspectus of the various provinces of the Chinese Empire, with a note of the (theoretical) population, and the area. The fig- ures of the former are taken from the Statesman's Year Book for 1902, and though mere conjectures in some instances, and obviously erroneous in others, they answer very well for a rough approximation to truth. In con- formity to a common practice the Chinese names have been translated, with a view to a greater vividness of impression ; but it is to be remembered that the meaning is altogether lost sight of in common speech, and that in the cases where the province is named from some of its chief cities, the title never had any meaning.
1. Chihli. (Direct Rule, because it contains the capital of the empire.) Population 17,937,000 ; area 58,949 square
30 BEX CHRISTUS
miles. The metropolis, which is usually termed Peking, or the Xorthern Capital, is properly designated as Shun T'ien Eu, "the most interesting and unique city in Asia," about twenty-one miles in the circuit of its walls. Since its last occupation by the allies, it enjoys the distinction of being the only capital in the world which gives residence to a large number of foreign ambassadors who live in a separate quarter, protected by little armies of their own, within fortified legations. Next to Shanghai, Tientsin is the most important point in China, situated some thirty-five miles from the sea, at the junction of the Grand Canal with two other streams which form the " Sea River," navigable by steamers to Tientsin only. The population of Peking and of Tientsin cannot be known with any approximation to accuracy, but may be three-quarters of a million for the former, and half a million for the latter. Since the foreign occupation, the wall of Tientsin has been removed and great changes of many sorts have taken place. Tientsin is the commercial emporium of the greater part of Chihli as well as for considerable portions of Honan, Shantung, Shansi, and Manchuria. In the immediate future it will be an even more imi^ortaut distributing centre than at present. It will also be a railway terminus and junction, not only for the existing lines to Peking, eighty miles northwest, and to Newchwang to the east, but also of the Anglo-German line to Chinkiang on the Yang-tse. It wiU likewise be a place of educational and of manu- facturing importance. Pao Ting Fu, one hundred miles south of Peking, is the provincial capital, though during the incumbency of Li Hung Chang the seat of govern- ment was practically removed to Tientsin, to which place it has again reverted. Most of Chihli is a part of the Great Plain, but the north and west are mountainous. The vicinity of the seashore, as well as large tracts inland, are often covered with a nitrous efflorescence fatal to cultivation. Much of the plain is subject to inundations,
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 31
in consequence of which the inhabitants are frequently reduced to great misery.
2. Shantung. (East of the Mountains.) Population, 36,247,000 ; area, 53,762 (or, according to others, 65,104) square miles. This province has a long and an irregular coast line which is half the length of the whole circuit. The larger part of the land belongs to the Great Plain, but mountains extend from Chi Nan Fu, the capital, to the Shantung promontory. Tlie true Grand Canal ter- minates at Lin Ch'ing Cliou, the I'emainder of the route to Tientsin being by a river called (on the maps) the Wei. The city of T'ai An Fu is seated at the base of T'ai Shan (Great Mountain), the oldest historical moun- tain in the world, still much visited by pilgrims. Con- fucius and Mencius were natives of Shantung, in what is now the prefecture of Yen Chou Fu. The port -of Chiao Chou (Kiao Chou), occupied by the Germans in 1897, is on the southeast. They have built a railway to Wei Hsien and Ch'ing Chou Fu, which will soon be extended to the capital, and will connect with the future Tientsin-Chinkiang trunk line. The principal port is Chefoo, north of the promontory. Wei Hai Wei, not far distant, was in 1898 leased to the British as a partial counterbalance to the Russian occupation of Port Artlmr.
3. Kiangsu. (River Thyme, from the initial syllables of Kiaug Ning Fu, commonly called Nanking, or Southern Capital, and Soochow or Su Chou Fu, the principal cities.) Population, 20,905,000 ; area, 44,500 square miles. This province is one of the best watered in China, being mainly plain and marsh with the Yang-tse River running through it, and the Grand Canal, as well as numerous other streams, several lakes, and endlessly ramifying smaller canals. Nanking was the seat of government for China in the days of the first emperor of the Mings. Soochow, before it was ruined by the T'ai P'ing Rebellion, was a splendid city, and was linked with Hangchow as in the estimation of the Chinese the most desirable spot on
32 REX CHEISTUS
earth, only to be compared with Heaven. Foreigners have styled Soocliow the Paris of China. Shanghai is the commercial metropolis of the empii-e. Its foreign settle- ments are an epitome of the best and the worst that western civilization has to confer on China, and are grow- ing with rapid strides. Chinkiang, an important port on the Yang-tse, was ruined by the T'ai P'ing Rebellion, but was rebuilt, and is again flourishing.
4. Chekiang. (Tidal-bore River.) Population, 11,- 588,000 ; area, 39,150 square miles. One of the smaller of the eighteen provinces, largely hilly or mountainous, with numerous rivers, rich valleys, large cities, and abundant productions, of which silk and tea are tlie chief. In the principal river of the province there is a famous tidal bore, which is one of the sights of China. Hangchow, the capital, was also the capital of China in a part of the Sung dynasty, and is the southern terminus of the Grand Canal. Ningpo, at the junction of three rivers, is the most important port of the province.
5. Fukien. (Happily Established.) Population, 22,- 190,000 ; area, 38,500 square miles. This is another one of the smaller provinces, especially since the large island of Formosa was wrested from China by Japan at the close of the wJir in 1895. Although almost entirely hilly or mountainous, Fukien is supposed to have a large population. The lofty hills are terraced to the very top, yet the area of arable land is insufficient for the support of the inhabitants.
Foochow, the capital, thirty -four miles from the sea on the river Min, is a large (and filthy) city, which was made a treaty port in 1842. Owing to the strong com- petition of the Ceylon and India leaf, and the consequent decline of the tea trade, the importance of Foochow as a commercial centre has declined. Amoy, another of the five ports opened by the treaty just mentioned, in the southeast of the province, is beautifully situated on an island, with an excellent harbor. It has been the centre
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 33
of a foreign trade for nearly two hundred years. Fiikien is noted among the provinces of China for the great number of its local dialects, and for their mutual unintel- ligibility. The people are turbulent in disposition, and have been styled the "Irishmen of China." The literati are peculiarly proud and conceited. The Ku Cli'eng massacre of 1895 exhibited the unreasoning fury of the ignorant peasants. According to Professor Warneck, the number of Protestant Christians in Fukien (25,409) was, in 1001, larger than that in any other province.
6. Kuangtung. (Broad East.) Population, 29,706,000 ; area, 79,456 square miles. This is the most southeastern province, and the one longest known to foreigners, as well as the one from which come nearly all Chinese immigrants to the United States. It includes also the large island of Hainan. The province is watered by three large streams, the West, North, and East Rivers, which are estimated to drain 150,000 square miles of territory, and which combine to form the Pearl River (Chu Kiang), on which is situated the city of Canton (Kuang Chou Fu), distant about ninety-five miles from Hongkong. The population of Canton is supposed to be not less than a million souls, and is increasing. The Cantonese are very enterprising and the best merchants in China, but are endued with an unlimited capacity for exploding in anti- foreign and anti-dynastic outbreaks. The relation of Canton to early foreign trade, and to the beginnings of China missions, has been mentioned elsewhere. The settlement of Macao, about forty miles from Hongkong, near the mouth of the estuary of the Pearl River, has long been occupied by the Portuguese and contains a considerable population, but its commercial importance was extinguished by the rise of Hongkong. Swatow, on
he northeast, was made a port by the treaty of 1858, and Pakhoi, in the southwest, by the Chefoo Convention of 1876.
7. Kuaugsi. (Broad West.) Population, 5,151,000;
+
34 REX CHBISTUS
area, 78,250 square miles. This is probably the most sparsely settled province in the empire, and has been pronouncedly anti-foreign. Its principal commercial city, Wu Chou Fu, has recently been made accessible to steamboat trafBc. The great T'ai P'ing Rebellion had its rise in Kuangsi. At present (1903) a large part of the province is overrun by rebels wliom the impe- rial troops are unable to put down. There are many tribes not of the Chinese race within the boundaries of Kuangsi, who are ruled b}^ the authorities only in an indirect way.
8. Kueichou. (Noble Region.) Population, 7,669,000; area, 64,554 square miles. The people of this remote province are rude, ignorant, and turbulent. It is con- sidered to be in all respects the poorest of the empire. It has considerable mineral wealth, especially deposits of mercury, which have been worked for centuries, and are said to be of unequalled richness. The provincial capital is the smallest in China, with walls not more than two miles in circuit.
9. Yunnan. (Cloudy South.) Population, 11,721,000. (Tliere is evidently a gross error in this total, which ought to be reduced by more than one-half.) Area, 107,969 square miles. This is the most extreme southwestern province of the empire, some of its remoter cities accord- ing to Chinese reckoning being more than 3000 English miles from Peking. It -was subdued in the T'ang dy- nasty, and is therefore one of the more recent additions to the eighteen provinces, not dating from much more than ten centuries ago. Yunnan has an extensive central plateau, with valley-plains at an elevation of from 5000 to 6000 feet. Like the last mentioned provinces, it is largely occupied by tribes owning but nominal allegiance to the Chinese government. " The mineral wealth of Yunnan is greater and more varied than that of any other prov- ince, certain of its mines having been worked ever since the Sung dynasty." The French are energetic and
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 35
untiring in their endeavors to exploit this part of China, which certainly cannot long remain in its present in- accessible and undeveloped condition.
ID. Ssuch'uan. (Four Streams.) Population, 67,712,- 000 ; area, 166,800 square miles. This, the largest province of China, takes its name from its principal rivers, which are all tributary to the mighty Yang-tse. The western part is mountainous, the eastern fertile and populous, and for ages has had a high civilization. The productions are abundant. The seat of government (Ch'eng Tu Fu, the Completed Capital), in the midst of a large and thickly populated plain, is supposed to have a million inhabitants. Since Ch'ung Ch'ing (Chungking) has been made the residence of foreign consular officials, and since the upper Yang-tse has been navigated by steamboats, the vast possibilities of this imperial do- main are coming to be better understood, and there is keen competition between the British and the French for railway and mining concessions. The salt wells of the province have long been famous. Lolo tribes are scattered through the western portions of Ssuch'uan.
II. Hunan. (South of the Lakes.) Population, 21,- 002,000 ; area, 74,320 square miles. Like the province last mentioned, Hunan has four principal rivers, the basin of which is extremely populous. The capital, Ch'ang Sha Fu, is a large and an ancient city, supposed to have a million inhabitants. The people of this province are high-strung and imperious. Some of the most promi- nent statesmen of the past generation, notably the Tseng family, are Hunanese. The province has long been known as the most obstinately anti-foreign in China. It was a boast that no missionaries could find lodgment there, whatever they might be able to do elsewhere. In the early nineties this bitter feeling exploded in the anti-Christian " Hunaji Tracts," which showed unparal- leled venom and depravity. During the reform move- ments of 1898 Hunan was much stirred, and at length
36 BEX CHRISTUS
greatly enlightened. It may be said to be now really open, and there are at present more than fifty mission- aries in its limits. The great trunk railway line from Hankow to Canton will tai3 the best sections of Hunan, and cannot fail to be a great benefit to it.
12. Hupeh. (North of the Lakes.) Population, 34,- 244,000; area, 70,450 square miles. The capital, Wu Ch'ang Fu, with Hankow, a treaty port, and Han Yang, at tlie mouth of the important Han River, together con- stitute the most important commercial and industrial gan- glion in the empire, and an unrivalled missionai'y centre. Hankow is the southern terminus of the Lu Han rail- way from that city to Peking, which is nearly half com- pleted. The wonderful Yang-tse gorges between I Ch'ang Fu and the Ssuch'uan border, with cliffs rising to the height of between 1000 and 2000 feet, are among the chief sights of China.
13. Kiangsi. (West of the River.) Population, 24,- 534,000; area, 72,176 square miles. This province is drained by the Kang Chiang, and is largely hilly or moun- tainous. Its treaty port is Kiukiang on the Yang-tse. The great Sung dynasty philosopher, Chu Hsi, lived at Nan Kang, west of the Po Yang Lake. Kiangsi has long been famous for the porcelain which takes its name from the empire, and which is unrivalled elsewhere.
13. Anhui. (Peace and Excellence, from the names of two of its chief cities.) Population, 20,596,000 ; area, 48,461 square mUes. This province lies on both sides of the Yang-tse. Although the population is dense, it is far less than befoi-e the T'ai P'ing Rebellion. Green tea is largely exported. The late Li Hung Chang was a native of Anhui, and many other prominent officials hail from there. The capital is An Ch'ing, also written Ngan- king, and Ganking, on the Yang-tse.
15. Honan. (South of the Yellow River.) Population, 22,115,000; area, 66,913 square miles. Much of this province is a part of the Great Plain, fertile and popu-
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 37
lous. It is au aucient and a historic section of the empire, which was first settled along the banks of the Yellow River. The capital, K'ai Feng Fu, was once that of the empire. The Yellow River has frequently changed its course near this point, sometimes flowing north to the Gulf of Pechili, and sometimes southeast to the Yellow Sea. In 1888 it again broke out toward the southeast, becoming, as it chronically does, " China's Sorrow," but was later restored to its former channel to inundate Shantung instead of the two provinces to the south.
i6. Shansi. (West of the Mountains.) Population, 12,211,000; area, 56,268 square miles. This is one of the frontier provinces, and is supposed to have been " the original seat of the Chinese people." It is a series of elevated table-lands bounded by mountains. The soil presents many extraordinary phenomena in the loess deposits, with their deep clefts, the terraces rising in different levels as far as the eye can reach. The mineral wealth of Shansi, especially in iron and coal, is appar- ently inexhaustible, the former being equal to any in the world and the latter found in quantities estimated to suffice for the whole world for more than a thousand years. The entire province, once wealthy, is cursed with the opium habit. Shansi men are famous all over China as business factors, and especially as bankers. The mountain passes from Chihli are great arteries of travel, and Dr. Williams thinks that these highways " when new, probably equalled in engineering and construction any- thing of the kind ever built by the Romans."
17. Shensi. (Western Passes.) Population, 8,432,000 ; area, 67,400 square miles. The capital of this province is Si Ngan Fu (also wiitten Singan and Hsi An Fu), which has been the capital also of the empire for a longer period than any other city. It was the refuge of the Chinese court after the occupation of Peking by the allies in 1900. The Nestorian Tablet is in an old temple court beyond the west suburb. Si Ngan Fu, a city with
145710
88 REX CHRISTUS
lofty walls and of a far more imposing appearance than Peking, is a distributing point of the first class, being the principal back door of China. The basin in which it is situated is fertile, but owing to the disastrous Moham- medan rebellion in the sixties, still not thickly populated. The same is yet more the case in other parts of the prov- ince. This is one of the most ancient parts of the empire.
i8. Kansuh. (Willing Reverence, from the names of two leading cities.) Population, 9,285,000; area, 125,450 square miles. This vast stretch of territory was set off from Shensi more than a century ago, and its western part extends to the terminus of the Great Wall, and be- yond to the desert of Gobi. This insures control of the important passages toward the provinces to the eastward. Kansuh was devasted by the great Mohammedan rebellion just mentioned, and there have been repeated outbreaks since. The eastern part yields productions similar to those of the Great Plain. There are mineral deposits of unknown value mainly undeveloped.
Besides these eighteen provinces there is a vast tract to the north of them, denoted by the general term Man- churia, the original home of the present Manchu dynasty. It is divided into three provinces, Shinking (also written Sheng Ching), Kirin (or Chi Lin), and Chi Chi Har (or Tsitsihar). Manchuria has been largely colonized by immigrants from Shantung, and the inhabitants have proved far more receptive of Christian truth (presented to them by the Scotch and Irish Presbyterian Missions), despite their initial bitter opposition, than almost any part of the eighteen provinces. Since the cession to Russia of the right to build through these provinces the Siberian railway and to guard it, the whole territory has become Russianized. It was occupied by Japan after her war with China, but the European Powers would not allow her to keep it. Its complete absorption, euphemis- tically styled " painless identification " by Russia, threat-
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 39
ens China, Japan, and incidentally the peace of a large part of the rest of the world.
SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
When China is moved it will change the face of the globe. — Napoleon at St. Helena.
It is a great step toward the Christianization of our planet if Christianity gain an entrance into China.
— Neander.
A high minister of state in China said to me a little over a year ago : " If we could only believe that foreigners were sincere in their friendship to us, we would in an instant open up the whole of our country and let traders as well as missionaries go everywhere. It is not that we are unwilling to advance ; we are afraid." The writer is confident that there are honorable, large-minded, generous men in all our Christian nations ready to drive off such fears, and to unitedly help in bringing about a new and happy era in China, one of j^rosperity, peace, and social regeneration. — Gilbert Reid, in The National Review.
■'O^
I love American institutions and believe the instruction of Chinese youth in America to be the best means of translating American ideas into China, thus bringing to- gether the oldest empire of the East and the greatest republic of the West. — Chentung Liang Cheng, Min- ister to U. S., at Amherst Commencement, 1903.
Ancient Civilization
When Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness, Chinese laws and literature and Chinese religious knowl- edge excelled that of Egypt. A hundred years before the north wind rippled over the harp of David, Wung Wang, an emperor of China, composed classics which are com-
40 REX CHRISTUS
mitted to memory at this day by every advanced scholar of the empire. While Homer was composing and singing the Iliad, China's blind minstrels were celebrating her ancient heroes, whose tombs had already been with them through nearly thirteen centuries. Her literature was fully developed before England was invaded by the Norman conquerors. The Chinese invented firearms as early as the reign of England's first Edward, and the art of printing five hundred years before Caxton was born. They made paper a.d. 150, and gunpowder about the commencement of the Christian era. A thousand years ago the forefathers of the present Chinese sold silks to the Romans, and dressed in these fabrics when the inhabit- ants of the British Isles wore coats of blue paint and fished in willow canoes. Her great wall was built two hundred and twenty years before Christ was born in Bethlehem, and contains material enough to build a wall five or six feet high around the globe.
— Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D.
In all my life rolled together I had never seen so many water-craft as I saw at Shanghai. They anchor in such myriads that the beholder realizes for the first time what a farce it is to speak of the " forests of masts " at New York or Liverpool. They lie together in all but solid masses for miles and miles on each side of the harbor, and the channel between the lines is no more clear of them than Broadway or Charing Cross is free of vehicles at noonday. Thus we see how large a proportion of the population is nautical. — Julian Ralph.
Asia is now the field. The coming question will be Asiatic. It belongs to the next generation. I should advise my younger friends to bend their thoughts in that direction. It may come with the youngest and the oldest civilizations — the United States and China — face to face!
, — Editor London Times.
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 41
O, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judg- ment seat;
But there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor birth.
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth. — Kipling.
Even the discovery of this continent and its islands, and the organization of society and government upon them, grand and important as these events have been, were but conditional, preliminary, and ancillary to the more sublime result now in the act of consummation — the reunion of the two civilizations which, parting on the plains of Asia four thousand years ago, and travelling ever aftei'ward in opposite directions around the world, now meet again on the coasts and islands of the Pacific Ocean. Certainly no mere human event of equal dignity and importance has ever occurred upon the earth.
— W. H. Seward.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. China's Limitless Resources. II. Floods and Famines.
III. Life on the Waterways and in House-Boats.
IV. China at the Time of the Trojan War. V. Mongols and Manchus.
VI. The Troublesome Tartars. (Read Coleridge's
" Kublai Khan.") VII. Comparison between the Reigns of K'ang Hsi and his Contemporary, Louis XIV of France. VIII. The Great Wall and Other Public Works. IX. Reasons for Chinese National Conceit. X. China a Literary Nation. XL The " Arrested Development" of China. XII. Home and Child Life in China.
42 BEX CHRISTUS
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
For general reference on this and succeeding chapters : —
Beach's " Dawn on the Hills of T'ang."
Beach's " Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions."
Bliss's "Encyclopaedia of Missions."
Dennis's " Christian Missions and Social Progress."
Doolittle's " Social Life of the Chinese."
Encyclopaedias, articles on " China."
Martin's " Cycle of Cathay " and " Lore of Cathay."
Smith's " Chinese Characteristics " and " ViUage Life in
China." Williams's " The Middle Kingdom."
For special reference on above themes : —
Ball's " Things Chinese." IV, VI, VII, VIII.
Bishop's " The Yangtze Valley and Beyond." I, II, III,
XI, XII. Bryson's " Child Life in Chinese Homes." XII. Chang Chih-tung's " China's Only Hope." IX, X, XI. Colquhoun's " China in Transformation." I, V, XI. Colquhoun's " Overland to China." V. Curzou's " Problems of the Far East." X. De Quincey's " Flight of a Tartar Tribe." VI. Dukes's " Everyday Life in China." XII. Giles's " Chinese Literature." IV, VII. Gilmour's " Among the Mongols." V, XII. Gilmour's " More About the Mongols." V. Gracey's " China in Outline." I, X. Guinness's " In the Far East." Ill, XII. Henry's " Ling-nam, or Interior Views of South China."
Ill, XII. Headland's "Chinese Boy and Girl." XII. Holcombe's " The Real Chinese Question." V, IX, X.
A SELF-CENTRED EMPIRE 43
Hue's " Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China." I, II,
III, IV, V, VI. Lewis's " Educational Conquest of the Far East." X. Moule's " Chinese Stories for Boys and Girls." XII. Moule's " New China and Old." X, XL Nevius's " China and the Chinese." I, II, III, Vin, X. Phillips's " Peeps into China." Ill, XII. Ross's " The Manchus." II, V. Yule's " Cathay and the Way Thither." IV, V, VL
Articles on China in Periodicals: —
Century, Vol. 23, " The Great Wall of China." VIH. Harper's, Vol. 91, " House-Boating in China." III. Lippincotfs, Vol. 19, " The Tartar and His Home." VL Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 21, " The Chinese : Their Manners and Customs." XII,
CHAPTER II
The Religions of China
Confucia7iism
There is no equivalent in the Chinese lan- guage for the word " religion," its place being taken by a term which signifies instruction. It is for this reason peculiarly important, in speak- ing of the religions of China, to make clear the relation of Confucius to the people among whom he lived and died, and who worship his memory. As his personality is implicated with his system, it is desirable to say a few words of the external facts of his life. He was born, 551 B.C., in what is now called the county of Ch'u Fu, in the prefecture of Yen Chou, in the province of Shantung. His family name was K'ung, and his designation Chung Ni, but he was called by his disciples " The Master K'ung " (K'ung Fu- tzu), a title which, being Latinized by the Jesuit missionaries, has passed into the languages of Europe.
His parents, although poor, were respectable. He showed a taste for books, and became at the age of twenty-two a teacher, drawing about him many admiring pupils. He was filled with en-
44
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 45
thusiasm by the study of the ancients, and mourning over the degeneracy of his own times endeavored to set them right by setting an ex- ample of good government, as well as by oral instruction to his disciples. At the age of fifty-five he was made a high officer in his native state and the improvement in public morals was soon manifest.
But Confucius was not a courtier, he was a reformer ; and then, as now, reform was not popular. The prince of the state of Lu was corrupted by the present from a rival prince of a band of beautiful dancing girls, and abandoned the principles with which he had been inspired by the sage. Disappointed and disgusted, Con- fucius retired to private life, spending the re- mainder of his days in the instruction of youth and in the collection of the wisdom of the past. His disciples are said to have numbered three thousand, among whom five hundred became distinguished, and seventy-two of them are en- rolled as Sages of the Empire. His own esti- mate of himself is of moment in an examination of his influence. He modestly said : " The sage and the man of perfect virtue — how dare I rank myself with them? It may simply be said of me that I strive to become such without satiety, and to teach others without weariness. In letters, I am perhaps equal to other men ; but the character of the Superior Man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what
46 BEX CHBISTUS
I have not attained to. The leaving virtue without proper cultivation ; the not thoroughly- discussing what is learned ; not being able to move toward righteousness of which knowledge is gained ; and not being able to change what is not good, — these are the things which occasion me solicitude. I am not one who was born in possession of knowledge ; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it. A trans- mitter, and not a maker, believing in and loving the ancients."
Teachings of Confucius. — The first of the " Four Books " which every Chinese lad studies as soon as he is able to do so after entering school, is called in English the " Analects," and like Xenophon's " Memorabilia of Socrates," consists largely of reminiscences gathered by his disciples. Among these are to be found the extracts just cited, and many others which throw much light on the views of the master. He refused to discuss the future, dismissing the question with the aj)horism : " Not knowing life, how can we know death?" — a sentence which has had a fateful influence over innu- merable millions of immortals checked in their search for truth.
The saying most quoted in Christian lands is the Golden Rule in a negative form : " Do not do unto others as you would not that others should do unto you," a dictum which may be regarded as the high-water mark of Confucian
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 47
morality, as well as of all non-Christian teach- ings. In another paragraph the positive side of the same rule is virtuall}^ implied : " When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path." In the same connection he disclaims having at- tained unto serving his father as he would have his son serve him, to serving his prince as he would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as he would require a younger brother to serve him, and to behave to a friend as he would require him to behave to himself. These words suggest the summary of duties which constitute the essence of Confucianism in its explanation of the social system, the " Five Relations " of prince and minister ; father and son ; husband and wife ; of brother to brother ; ■and of friend to friend. To a Chinese these categories exhaust the universe. The Five Constant Virtues are Benevolence, Righteous- ness, Propriety, Knowledge, and Faith. The standard of the first is so high that few of the ancient worthies were held to have attained to it; and, as we have just seen, Confucius dis- claimed for himself that merit. Righteousness is what ought to be done, as interpreted by con- science. Propriety is an unavoidably infelici- tous rendering of a term which denotes the outward manifestation of an inner feeling. Knowledge is a comprehensive word, embracing
48 BEX CHRISTUS
everything from mere cognition up to wisdom. It was a pithy saying of Confucius : " To know what we know, and what we do not know, is knowledge." Faith, or sincerity, is the last of the five ; and as we shall have occasion to see, it is in fact the one of which least is seen and experienced in Chinese, and among thorough- going Confucianists. It has been said that there are six essential elements of Confucianism, five of which, so far as we know, differentiate it from any other system of non-Christian thought. Foundation Principles. — Of these, the first is its doctrine of the direct responsibility of the sovereign to Heaven, Shang Ti, or God. This, which is abundantly illustrated in the classical writings, is as really a factor of the government of to-day as it was of that of antiquity. From this source originates the whole complex theory of responsibility, which plays so large a part in the conduct of all Chinese affairs, both private and public. The worship of Heaven is the pre- rogative of the emperor alone, and has been well compared by Dr. Martin, so far as its in- fluence on the public mind is concerned, to a ray of the sun falling upon an iceberg. In a humble and feeble manner the people imitate this worship by the presentation of offerings on the first and fifteenth of the moon to -' Old Father Heaven," an impersonal personality often associated with " Old Mother Earth " ; or, more briefly, they worship "Heaven and Earth."
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 49
A second element of Confucian teaching is the singular proposition that the people are of more importance than the sovereign. The latter, as we have previously seen, rules by " Heaven's Decree," and when it has been lost, he is de facto no longer the rightful ruler. There is in China a well-recognized " right of rebellion," and ab- solute monarcliy is tempered with practical de- mocracy in a manner elsewhere unexampled, — a fact without a knowledge of which contempo- raneous Chinese history cannot be understood.
A third element is that delimitation of the social relations just mentioned, which, while appearing to the Chinese all comprehensive, in reality takes no account of such classes as em- ployer and employee, nor of such entities as capital and labor.
A fourth element is the prominence of the virtues just specified, which form a standard never lost sight of, but constantly brought be- fore the eyes of all Chinese. The civil service examinations, as we have seen, a slow growth of many ages, have unified the mind of the Chinese as the mind of no other people was ever unified, unless the Jews be an exception ; and the Jews, unlike Confucianists, are divided into old and new schools. In China there is no in- tellectual revolt against any part of the teach- ings of Confucianism. China and Confucianism are synonymous terms. By means of absolutely uniform classical text-books, and by written
50 BEX CHRISTUS
mottoes pasted on all the door-posts of the em- pire and renewed every New Year, Confucian maxims are kept before the eyes and in the minds of the people. It is an integral part of the theory that only the wise and the able should rule. The object of the elaborate civil service examinations is to determine who the wise and able are.
The fifth element is the presentation of an ideal or Princely Man as a model on which every Confucianist should form his character. The influence of this ideal upon the unnum- bered millions of Chinese Confucianists must have been measureless. The fact that the master disclaimed having attained to his own ideal, places before his followers the ambition to live up to the high level which Confucius had not reached. Self-examination is inculcated by the precepts and by the example of the greatest rulers and wise men of antiquity. No nation, no race, was ever better outfitted with admi- rable moral precepts than the Chinese.
The remaining of the six elements is filial piety. This includes not only the meaning naturally suggested to Orientals by the phrase, but a great deal more, and in especial the wor- ship of ancestors, which is the real religion of the Chinese people. It is perhaps the most potent among several causes which have perpet- uated the Chinese race as a unit through all the millenniums of its national history. It is
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 51
•
itself an illustration of the saying of one of the greatest emperors of the T'ang dynasty, more than one thousand years ago, that Confucian- ism is adapted to the Chinese people as water to the fish.
Weak Spots in Confucianism. — Such, in the merest outline, is the remarkable system of social ethics which is called Confucianism. If human nature were in an ideal condition, Con- fucianism would be adapted to that ideal, and, as Dr. Legge remarked, a world ordered by it would be a beautiful world, but it would still be deficient in the chief of all the " Relations," for it has within it no explanation of that which is highest, deepest, and most essential in man. Its view of God is defective, its view of man inadequate, and it has no explanation of the relation between the two. God and Heaven are synonymous. Heaven and Earth constitute a dualism, " the conjunction of their vital es- sences brings forth a third, the incandescent part of which is called a spirit. Heaven unites its essences with those of the sun, moon, and stars, and spirits of Heaven result. In a similar way the spirits of mountains, rivers, and seas are produced. When any of these spirits in some special way benefit creation, the national government canonizes them, and they take their place by the side of Heaven." The preceding sentences are taken from the elaborate essay presented at the Parliament of Religions by
52 REX CHRISTUS
Mr. P'eng Kuang Yu, and may therefore be regarded as authoritative. They exhibit the nature worship which, in combination with hero worship, and the worship of ancestors, charac- terizes the Confucian cult.
The objects of the state worship are of the most miscellaneous and incongruous description, including the heavens, the sky, the earth, the temples containing the tablets of the deceased monarchs of the dynasty, the gods of the land and the grain, the sun, the moon, the spirits of emperors or kings of previous dynasties, Con- fucius, the ancient patrons of agriculture and silk, the gods of heaven, earth, and the cyclic year. There is also a lower grade of sacrifices to the spirits of those who in life were distin- guislied in different ways, as generals, statesmen, philanthropists, etc. Temples of this sort are constantly recommended to the emperor for his approval, and are authorized by imperial decrees, one of the most recent being to the spirit of the late Li Hung Chang. There are also temples to and worship of clouds, rain, wind, thunder, the five great mountains, the four seas and four rivers, famous hills, great watercourses, flags, gods of cannon, gates, the queen goddess of earth, the north pole, and many other things. Thus, as Dr. "Williams, from whom the above summary is quoted, remarks, the ancient sim- plicity of the state religion has been so far cor- rupted as to combine in one ritual, gods, ghosts,
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 53
flags, and cannon. It has become at once es- sentially polytheistic and pantheistic.
Universality of Temples. — Idolatry is directly connected with the underlying presuppositions of the Confucian faith, and the building of tem- ples began shortly after the classical period, its roots being found in the classics. The present universality of temples all over China does not, however, reach back beyond the T'ang dynasty. The number of such is past computation, espe- cially to heroes like the present god of war, who is theoretically worshipped in every city and ham- let of the empire, although this is not alwa3'S the case. The waste of wealth in structures of this description, often heavily endowed and accom- panied with an expensive service, is incomput- able. One of the prerogatives of the emperor is the canonization of the spirits of the dead, who are appointed to certain positions in the Pan- theon and from time to time promoted, just as living civil and military officers are given official rank, the fact being in each case notified in the Peking Gazette. Every magistrate is officially required to perform a great variety of idolatrous ceremonies at the temples, and for this reason alone no Christian can hold office in China. The Mohammedans, many of whom hold public positions, have compromised the matter with their somewhat pliable consciences, and if asked how they can consent to do so, will not improb- ably reply that although obliged externally to
54 BEX CHRIST us
conform, they do not "worship in their hearts," in which respect they probably do not materially differ from the average Conf ucianists.
There are in the empire 1560 temples dedi- cated to Confucius, where are annually offered several tens of thousands of animals, as well as innumerable pieces of silk. Officials worship not only at the required temples, but, in times of special emergency, wherever else and whatever else may chance to commend itself to them as beneficial to their public or private interests. Thus during the great floods at Tientsin during the early seventies, Li Hung Chang prostrated himself before a snake which was alleged to be a " Tai Wang," or god of the waters. Memori- als frequently appear in the Peking G-azette, recommending to the emperor's favorable con- sideration the god of some river which, during the floods, did not burst its banks, and in response it is ordered that a certain amount of expensive Thibetan incense should be burned before its shrine in recognition of its merit.
Comparison between Confucianism and Chris- tianity.— Dr. Ernst Faber, who has bestowed more labor on the thorough examination of the Chinese classical writings than any Chinese scholar since Dr. Legge, compiled an instructive list of the points in which Confucianism and Christianity resemble one another. Among them are the acknowledgment of a superintending Divine Providence, which punishes the evil and
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 66
rewards the good ; the belief in an invisible world above and around this material life ; a moral law positively set forth as equally binding on man and spirits ; prayer believed to be heard and answered by the spiritual powers ; sacrifices regarded as necessary to come into closer contact with the spiritual world. ("Even its deeper meanings of self-sacrifice and of a vicarious sac- rifice are touched upon, which are two important steps toward an understanding of the sacrificial death of Christ.") Miracles are believed in as the natural efficacy of spirits. Moral duty is taught in the five relations already mentioned. Cultivation of the personal moral character is regarded as the basis for successfully carrying out the social duties, and it is insisted that this self-control should not be abandoned in private when no mortal being is near to observe it. Virtue is valued above riches and honor. In case of failure in political and social life, moral self -culture is to be even more carefully attended to than before. ("This is the great moral vic- tory which Confucius gained, and the same may be said of his distinguished followers, the great- est among whom are Mencius and Chu Fu-tze. None of these pillars of Confucianism turned to money-making, or sought vain glory in the ser- vice of the state by sacrificing their principles to gain official employment, or by a promise to keep their conviction secret in their bosoms. They gained greater ultimate success by their failure
56 BEX CHRISTUS
in life.") Sincerity and truth are shown to be the only basis for self-culture and the reform of the world. ("This gives to self-culture a high moral tone. It is not merely fine manners and good works, but a normal state of the intentions of the mind, combined with undefiled feelings and emotions of the heart.") How imperfectly this ideal is realized will elsewhere appear. The Golden Rule is proclaimed as the principle of moral conduct among our fellow-men. Every ruler should carry out a benevolent government for the benefit of the people. Every Chinese official, from the emperor down, is in theory a "Father and Mother" to the people. It is a great advantage to have this high ideal explic- itly stated.
On the other hand there is a wide range of religious ideas which in Confucianism find but dim expression, or no expression at all. The Confucian "Supreme Ruler" is remote, and out of all connection with mankind. He is not i Father, and as we have seen, his subjects are not allowed to worship him. Prayer and its ethical value find no place in the system of Con- fucius. So far as there is any such thing in practice, it is a ceremony by which evils are avoided and blessings secured. Some men are said to be born with complete knowledge and are called sages ; some can acquire thi.^ knowl- edge and are called worthies, wtiiie others must forever remain in ignorance and practical de-
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 57
spair, and of this strange circumstance there is no explanation, and for it no remedy.
There is no comprehension of sin as a fact, nor is any remedy for its evils suggested. On the contrary the advice of the master was to " Worship the gods, but to keep at a distance from them," but he expressly says that he who sins against Heaven has no one to whom to pray. Polytheism, as we have just seen, is an inevitable accompaniment of the Confucian cult, and a tangled mass of superstitions based upon the "Book of Changes" has always been believed in. The influence of example is inordinately exaggerated, while the actual history of China under its many great rulers remains unexplained. Filial piety is exaggerated into a virtual if not a conscious, deification of parents. The rewards and punishments of Confucius are confined to this world ; immortality is either non-existent or at best uncertain. Though confidence is insisted upon, its presupposition, truthfulness in speak- ing, is never practically urged, but rather the reverse.
The practiciii eftects of this system of thought upon the Chinese people are of a mixed character. Many of them have been in the highest degree conservative, while others have tended toward social disintegration which has yet in other ways been prevented. Without undertaking in any way to balance the account, let us glance for a. moment at the disabilities under which the
58 BEX CHBISTUS
ivomen of China have for centuries labored. Confucianism presupposes and tolerates polyg- amy, with its illimitable train of inevitable evils. The infanticide of female infants follows natu- rally from the inferior position of woman, an inferiority, be it observed, which is itself a part of the system. Although the latter does not interdict the education of woman, it is practi- cally unknown. She is placed in a position, the evils of which are not infrequently intolerable, but from which escape is impossible. The natural and the constant result is suicide, against which Confucianism has no remon- strance, and to prevent which it has no remedy. Its doctrine of the filial duty of leaving de- scendants, that the graves of the family may be properly tended, leads to the propagation of innumerable human beings who should never have been born, because under existing condi- tions there is no means by which they can be supported. This is of itself sufficient to account for the universal poverty everywhere witnessed in this empire, despite its material resources and the unmatched industry of the people.
There can be no doubt that Confucianism has exerted a restraining force not elsewhere equalled in human history. It has kept in social order the most numerous race for the longest period ever known. To external influences it owes absolutely nothing. It is based upon tradition, and its golden age is in a remote and semi-mythi-
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 59
cal past. Theoretically, it is now all that it ever was, but in reality it is destitute of any adaptive or developing force and is unable to effect anything further for China, That the present exaggerated reverence for Confucius will be materially modified is certain. The " Book of Changes," upon which he laid so much stress and which he regarded with so much awe, on the advent of real science will crumble into ruins. For ages Japan was bound by Confucian fetters, but her adoption of western civilization has almost entirely emancipated her. Sooner or later, although more slowly, like causes must in China produce like results.
Taoism
One of the most comprehensive characters in the Chinese language is tao, which means road or path, the road or path, to speak, words, reason, having some analogy to the logos of the Greeks. The name Tao Chiao, or Doctrine of Rationalism, is applied to the teachings of a sect which claims as its founder Lao-tze, one of China's most famous teachers, supposed to have been born 604 B.C., but of whom little which is authentic is known. He was the great prophet of his age, and held some government appointment, like Keeper of the Archives, under the Chou dynasty, the ruin of which he foresaw, and accordingly resigned his office, going into retirement to cul- tivate tao and virtue. There is a tradition that
60 BEX CRBISTUS
at the pass leading out of the empire, the gov- ernor begged him to leave behind him some guide for erring humanity, and that he there- upon produced what is now known as the " Canon of Reason and Virtue," — a work con- taining only 5320 characters in eighty-one short chapters. This remarkable production has been studied by all the scholars of China, and in every age has been commented on. It has been said of it that probably no widely spread religion was ever founded upon so small a base. The native commentators observe that it is not easy clearly to explain the more profound passages — all that can be done is to give the general sense. The early Jesuit missionaries found in its mys- tical utterances a revelation of the Christian Trinity, and the sacred name of Jehovah. A brief extract from one of the numerous transla- tions may give an inadequate notion of its in- herent abstruseness : " Tao is impalpable ; you look at it, and you cannot see it ; you listen to it, and you cannot hear it. You tiy to touch it, and you cannot reach it. You use it, and you cannot exhaust it. It is not to be expressed in words. It is still and void ; it stands alone and changes not; it circulates everywhere and it is endangered. It is ever inactive, and yet leaves nothing undone. From it phenomena appear, through it they change, in it they dis- appear. Formless, it is the cause of form. Nameless, it is the origin of Heaven and Earth.
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 61
With a name it is the mother of all things. It is the ethical nature of the good man and the principles of his action."
It is remarkable that this profound book teaches men to return good for evil and to look forward to a higher life. There is a passage (considered to be spurious) in the earliest Chinese historian previously mentioned, relating an interview between Lao-tze, at the age of eighty-seven, and Confucius, who was more than fifty years younger, in which the latter was lectured, and informed that he must put away his proud air and many desires, his insinuating habit and wild will ; and that the reason why for twenty years he had not been able to attain unto tao, was because he was incapable of giv- ing it an asylum in his heart !
At the head of the Taoist Pantheon there is a trinity, in imitation of that of the Buddhists. A vast army of "superior and inferior divini- ties— gods, genii, heroes, good men, and virtu- ous women, the spirits of stars and the visible manifestations of nature and the elements, such as thunder and lightning, as well as dragons — have all been classed together as objects of worship, v/hile the god of literature, and gods and goddesses of disease, all receive their share of attention." The dragon is not regarded by the Chinese as a fabulous animal, but as a real existence and is worshipped as such. He reigns over all seas, lakes, and rivers. Celestial phe-
62 REX CHBISTUS
nomena are ascribed to his agency. The exalted notions of the Chinese in regard to the dragon have made this a favorite word to symbolize the dynasty, and the supremacy of the Chinese emperor, who is supposed to be seated on the Dragon Throne, while the dragon himself is depicted on the national flag and on postage stamps. Dr. Faber considers Confucianism as an efl:"ort to check desj)otism by an appeal to the example of supposed ancient rulers, fixing eti- quette, even to details, while Taoism is an attempt to accomplish the same end b}^ an appeal to the laws of nature. It is essentially material- istic. Even the soul is considered as a material substance, although more refined than the body, and liable to dissolution, but by discipline it may be trained to survive. The body, on the other hand, may attain to " a deathless perpetual life," training for which is assiduously pursued by multitudes who thirst for an immortality " which was not the heritage of the many, but might become the prize of the few."
Modern Taoism. — The Taoism of the present day has nothing to do either with the Canon of Reason and Virtue — of which its priests, for the most part, cannot even read a word — or with its reputed master, Lao-tze. With every age the character of Taoism has changed. The philosophy of its founder is now only an anti- quarian curiosity. Modern Taoism is of such a motley ch?vracter as almost to defy any attempt
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 68
to educe a well-ordered system from its chaos. From profound speculation it has passed into the pursuit of the elixir of immortality, the con- quest of the passions, the search for the philoso- pher's stone, the observance of fasts, the use of rituals and charms, the indefinite multiplication of objects of worship, and especially a system of demon exercises. It has been largely mixed with Buddhist elements and ideas, though in former ages these religions were deadly rivals. The official head of the sect, called by foreigners the Taoist Pope, lives on the Dragon and Tiger mountain in Kiangsi, where he keeps a great establishment, and is at times supposed to be consulted by the emperor himself. It is popu- larly believed that when it is desired to have a conference of this sort with this " Preceptor of Heaven," word is sent to a representative of the Pope living in Peking, who writes on a slip of paper a mysterious message. This is burned, whereupon the Preceptor of Heaven makes a journey to Peking, whither he travels like other grandees. But his return is by riding on the clouds and enveloped in mist, which has given rise to a proverb, — "Like the shoes of the Heavenly Preceptor, coming in the clouds and disappearing in the mist," — employed of what is vague and supernatural.
In this connection it is important to take note of the fact that the Chinese are victims to in- numerable superstitions which may at any
64 REX CHRISTUS
moment become magazines of dynamite, liable to sudden ignition with terrible effects. Total ignorance of the laws of nature and an unlimited faith in genii, fairies, magic pills, powders and charms, make a hotbed in which noxious results are rapidly and irresistibly brought to fruition. The Chinese queue, originally imposed by the dominant Manchus as a symbol of subjection, has become the most characteristic and most cherished mark of the national costume. To cut off the queue of another is a serious offence. During the year 1876, there prevailed over a large part of China a strange mania both of queue- cutting and of the fear of it. Men would awake to find their queues gone when no one had been in the room, and no human agency could have been employed. In other cases specific individ- uals were detected, or alleged to be detected, in the very act, and horrible punishments were meted out. Officials high and low issued proclama- tions, some of them offering high rewards for the detection of offenders, and others recom- mending the use of certain charms. Talismanic characters were sold by thousands, which, being braided into the hair, would render knives or scissors innocuous. For months this excite- ment continued to prevail, and at length died away as inexplicably as it came.
Root of the Boxer Madness. — In the year 1897 a similar excitement spread through many provinces over the reported abduction of chil-
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 6b
dren. It was generally believed that kidnappers could exert a potent spell over their victims, who at once followed them and were never seen asrain. What basis of fact lurked at the bottom of these tales it was impossible to decide, but it is certain that for many weeks it was highly dangerous for any one to travel, and many per- sons were captured by rustics and clubbed to death with hoes, or tied up and sent to yamen, where, failing to prove their identity and estab- lish their innocence, they were beaten and locked up, or in some extreme cases promptly tortured to death to make them confess. On this occa- sion the lives of many foreigners were endan- gered and native Christians had many narrow escapes. It is the Taoist teachings which have made these epidemics of madness possible. It is this which explains the persistence of the often officially repeated libels against foreigners of scooping out eyes, of extracting hearts, and the like, with a view to " making silver," — an art which it is believed they must possess, for other- wise whence have they so much money ? The subsumptions of the Taoists lie at the root of the whole Boxer madness, which may, there- fore, justly be charged to that origin, although there is no valid evidence that either they or the Buddhists had any important part in the movement. As long as the Chinese are pro- foundly ignorant of the uniformity of the mode in which the powers of nature act, having lost
66 BEX CHBISTUS
sight (if they ever had it) of the intuition of cause and effect, so long will they believe scat- tered black beans may speedily develop into an array ; that paper images flung to the winds or burned will turn into real warriors ; that by incantations swords may be rendered irresisti- ble, that by the overshadowing influences of the spirits of dead men, living men may be made impervious to Mauser bullets, and to all forms of shells projected from rifled cannon; that young girls can ride on a cloud, and at will bring down fire from heaven which will destroy steel men-of-war, with no harm or even risk to those wielding these tremendous powers.
From this point of view the Taoist faith is one of the most deadly foes to the internal peace of China, and to the existence of normal relations between the Chinese people and those not of their race who are dwellers within the Four Seas, and are therefore, according to classical authority, their brethren. It is altogether pos- sible that the Chinese might in a general way accept the dicta of modern science, without at all abating their faith in the wild infra-natural fables of the Taoists, or escaping from the bond- age of the crushing burdens thus imposed, under which the Chinese have been unconsciously op- pressed for two millenniums. Complete eman- cipation will be attained by the universal spread of the principles of Christianity, the only source from which it could proceed.
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 67
Chinese Buddhism
This religion was introduced into China by the Emperor Ming Ti in the year 66 A.D., who, in consequence of a dream (probably a myth of a later origin) sent to India to inquire into its character and to secure books and teachers, for it is supposed to have been known in India some centuries previous. The essential doctrines of Buddhism are the vanity of all material things, the supreme importance of charity, and the cer- tainty of rewards and punishments by means of the transmigration of souls. Its adaptation to Chinese needs arose from its supplying the vacancy due to the cold and heartless morality of Confucianism and the gross materialism of Taoism. Its success was immediate and remark- able. During the period of the Three Kingdoms, and down to the end of the Sui dynasty, Bud- dhism made rapid strides. " The government invited Buddhist missionaries from India to teach Buddhism, to translate their sacred books, to build beautiful temples, to cast immense idols, and to paint lovely pictures of Buddha on the doors of the homes of the people. The em- perors of these dynasties visited the temples and preached the law themselves, sending to India for more sacred books, so that in the Sui dynasty the Buddhist books were from ten to a hun- dred times more numerous than the Confucian books."
68 BEX CHRISTU8
During the T'ang dynasty Buddhism was patronized by all the emperors but two. One, however, who was fond of Taoism, drove out all the Buddhists from their monasteries, and ordered them to be killed, refilling the monaster- ies with Taoist monks. The succeeding emperor again expelled twelve thousand Buddhist monks and nuns, who had probably crept back on the death of their persecutor. The Empress Wu allowed the Buddhists to teach that she was an incarnation of one of the Buddhas, and immense idols were set up throughout the empire to rep- resent her. (It is a curious circumstance that among her dependents in the imperial court, the present empress dowager is said to be spoken of as the " Old Buddha.") Buddhist monks are often made mandarins. In the five minor dynas- ties following there was a certain reaction, for one of the emperors melted down the brass images to make cash. In the Sung dynasty the emperors sent out clever speakers to point out the errors of Buddhism, forbade the building of any more temples, and even the recital of Bud- dhist prayers. But the religion made rapid progress in Mongolia, upon which it has a firm grasp. During the Mongol dynasty there was another reaction, and magnificent temples were erected. The founder of the Mings, as already mentioned, had once been a Buddhist priest, and in that period the temples were again built and repaired.
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 69
The preceding paragraphs are condensed from a summary of a Chinese history translated by Dr. Richard, and they exhibit in a clear light the numerous metempsychoses through which this alien faith has been obliged to pass in the land of its adoption. At first it was a lusty j^oung giant, full of life and vigor, quite pre- pared to endure the fiery baptism of persecu- tion which was inevitable, but, like the human soul itself, it has gone through great trans- formations, modifying the other religions of the land, and being in turn to some extent influ- enced by them.
Chinese Buddhism was of the northern type, which in its sacred books uses the Sanscrit lan- guage, as the southern type employs the Pali. The books as rendered into Chinese are trans- literations (not translations) of the original, and are therefore almost wholly unintelligible to those who learn to repeat them, and alto- gether so to those who hear them. It is the use of this ritual in the services performed in honor of the dead which gives both the Buddhist and the Taoist priesthood their firm hold upon the mass of the Chinese people, who do not know and who cannot conceive of any other way of suitably completing funeral ceremonies, than to have a full complement of representatives of each religion to chant their liturgies, while a Confucian scholar is invited to make a dot on the tablet to the spirit of the dead, which alters
70 BEX CHRISTUS
the character for " King " into that meaning " Lord," a modern custom which seems to be alike inexplicable and indispensable.
The Dominant Religion. — Notwithstanding the powerful patronage of the emperors, as already mentioned, the teachings of Confucius and Mencius are too well understood and too deeply planted in the popular heart to be up- rooted or overridden. The literati have always refused to be driven from their positions by imperial orders, although, like others, they sum- mon the priests in times of emergency. These contradictory tendencies are well illustrated in the third emperor of the present dynasty, who promulgated an expansion of the Sixteen Moral Precepts of his father, the great K'ang Hsi. Among them is one directed against Taoist and Buddhist priests, whose idle mummeries and dis- solute lives are unsparingly condemned, exhibit- ing a clear perception of the real folly, vice, and peril of Buddhism in all its aspects. Yet this emperor was himself a daily worshipper of Buddhist idols served by the lamas.
That renunciation of their families, which is a condition of entrance into the ranks of the Buddhist priesthood, is so totally opposed to the tenets and the practices of Confucianism, that one might have expected it to be a com- plete bar to the entrance of Buddhism into China. But the recruits are taken from the poorest families, who are unable themselves to
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 71
support their cliildren, and are glad to see them provided for on any terms. In some cases chil- dren are purchased. Sometimes, also, adults who are weary of the " dusty earth " seek a refuge from its ills within the walls of the monastery. Many of these temples are situated in the most eligible and commanding positions, where the delights of the finest scenery which China can boast may gratify the recluses who have "seen the emptiness of the world." "Se- questered valleys enclosed by mountain peaks, and elevated far above the world which they profess to despise, are favorite seats for the communities of Buddhism. But it is no yearn- ing after God that leads them to court retire- ment ; nor is it the adoration of nature's Author that prompts them to place their shrines in the midst of his sublimest works. To them the uni- verse is a vacuum, and emptiness the highest object of contemplation. They are a strange paradox, — religious atheists ! Acknowledging no First Cause or Conscious Ruling Power, they hold that the human soul revolves perpetually in the urn of fate, liable to endless ills, and enjoying no real good. As it cannot cease to be, its only resource against this state of in- terminable misery is the extinction of con- sciousness, a remedy which lies within itself, and which they endeavor to attain by ascetic exercises ! "
Dr. Martin, from whose "Lore of Cathay" the
72 REX CHRISTUS
preceding paragraphs are cited, discriminates between the religions of China as ethical (Con- fucianism), physical (Taoism), and metaphysical (Buddhism). The mutual interaction of these upon one another has been alluded to, and a discussion of this might of itself fill an ex- tended essay, which would be a study in the art of uniting what Sir William Hamilton styled " incompossibilities." Buddhism has adopted the deities and spirits of other religions. Tao- ism, as we have seen, has imitated the trinity of the Buddhists. Confucianism despises, re- jects, and adopts them both ! Every Chinese is a Confucianist, but most of them are likewise Buddhists and Taoists as well. It is one of the most common aphorisms that the "three religions are after all one."
Temples to the Three Religions. — There are in China many temples dedicated to the Three Religions in which there are huge images of Con- fucius, Lao-tze, and Buddha, seated together, but the place of honor (although not invariably) is given to the Indian divinity. " This arrange- ment, however, gives great offence to some of the more zealous disciples of Confucius ; and a few years ago a memorial was presented to the emperor, praying him to demolish the Temple of the Three Religions which stood near the tomb of their great teacher, who has 'no equal but Heaven.' "
There is nothing revolting or licentious in
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 73
Buddhism, or indeed in any form of worship in China, — a fact in itself as remarkable as is the entire freedom of the Chinese classics from everything, from this point of view, objection- able. Buddhism has taught the Chinese a cer- tain amount of compassion for animal life. " The sparing of life has become a recognized virtue, and Confucianists and Taoists have been stirred up by Buddhism to exhibit more benevo- lent feeling toward the irrational creation than they would have shown without it." From the view-point of political economy, however, not to speak of Christianity, it seems a somewhat misdirected effort to spend money to buy fish out of a net and throw them back into a river, when there are upon the bank starving men, women, and children for whom nothing whatever is attempted. Yet from Chinese premises this is not at all an absurd proceeding. The fish once back in their element are on a self-supporting basis, and that is a thing done, whereas to dole out money to refugees is simply to invite further demands indefinitely, with no one to predict what other disagreeable consequences. There- fore, the man of benevolent instincts not im- probably patronizes the fish, and allows the human beings to worry on as they may.
The most popular divinity in China is proba- bly the "goddess of mercy, of whom it is said that she declined to enter the bliss of Nirvana, and preferred to hover on the confines of this
74 EEX CHRISTUS
world of suffering, in order that she might hear the prayers of men, and bring succour to their afflictions. What wonder that this attribute of divine compassion should win all hearts ? " It is a characteristic trait of Chinese theology that while down to the twelfth century this goddess, Kuan Yin, was represented as a man, for the last six hundred years the divinity has under- gone a metamorphosis, and is now generally regarded as a goddess, to which the attribute of mercy is considered more appropriate.
Buddhist temples are far more numerous in China than Taoist, but myriads of them are small and by far the larger number have no priest in attendance. In the northern part of the empire especially, there is much less atten- tion paid to them than elsewhere, and countless temples and shrines are seen decaying because the people feel too poor to repair them, and because they supply no really felt need. There is no doubt that the Buddhist monks, recruited as we have seen from the poorest and the most ignorant classes, fully deserve the ill-repute which they have gained. They withdraw from the use of the general community large tracts of land, in order to support in idleness, gam- bling, opium-smoking, and vice, social vampires who add nothing to the common weal, but suck the life-blood of China. Nunneries are fre- quent, the inmates being the children of those too poor to rear them. There may be virtuous
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 75
women among them, but the shrewd adage runs : —
" Ten Buddhist nuns, and nine are bad; The odd one left is doubtless mad."
It has always been recognized by the Con- fucianists as a great defect in Buddhism that it gives no instruction toward making one a good citizen. Its only remedy for the ills of life is to teach their unreality. Its precepts not to kill, not to steal, not to commit fornication, not to drink wine or eat meat, have not been without value ; but for ages Chinese Buddhism has been quite devoid of any ethical force. It has bestowed upon China the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and it has given her the pagoda. It is impossible for a Christian m.issionary in China to announce his message without throwing down a challenge both to Taoism and to Buddhism. In this he meets with no opposition from the popular feeling. His attitude toward Confu- cianism should, on the other hand, be one of profound respect, never attacking it, but en- deavoring to exhibit what Christianity can do and does do as a divine religion. The defects of the Chinese are as obvious to themselves as to others, and are readily and frankh^. admitted. The only means by which Christianity will ever gain a foothold in China is by convincing object- lessons of its power to do that in whicli all the Three Religions have conspicuously failed.
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Mohammedanism in China
The followers of the Prophet came to China more than a thousand years ago, in the T'ang dynasty, both by sea from ports on the Arabian Sea, and overland across Central Asia. The num- ber of them in China is indeterminate, but they are estimated at about twenty millions, the largest Mohammedan population being in the provinces of Kansuh, Hunan, and Shensi. They form a mechanical, as distinguished from a chemical, mixture with the Chinese, but as they speak the language of the regions which they occupy, from a linguistic point of view there is no line of demarcation between these widely different races.
The cheek-bones and the prominent noses of the Mohammedans readily differentiate them from the Chinese, and they have a custom, un- known to the Chinese, of clipping the mustache. They worship God under the name of Chu, or Lord, but they do not propagate their doctrines ; and in regions which the}' have occupied for half a millennium the Chinese have no clear idea of what Mohammedan tenets really are. They do not intermarry with the Chinese, but sometimes adopt Chinese children into Moham- medan families. Their religious services, while patterned on those in Mohammedan lands, are mostly formal, and except at the time of the Ramazan fast are but sparsely attended except
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 77
by women. The strict law forbidding the trans- lation of the Koran has prevented it from exert- ing any influence on Chinese thought, although there is in China a considerable body of Moham- medan literature. The Chinese consider the Mohammedans to be violent in temper and cruel in disposition. It is certain that where this is practicable some of them take readily to the life of a freebooter. While externally friendly to foreigners who teach a doctrine so allied to their own, the doctrine of Christ is to these people a great stumbling-block. The number of con- verts from their ranks has thus far been small, but there are signs that within the next genera- tion it may be much larger. One of their mollalis recently made the remark in regard to a mission station in his city, that until it was founded the Mohammedans were like a jar of pure water, but that on the advent of the Jesus religion the jar has been so stirred with a stick as to make the water appear turbid. By this he meant that in comparison witli Chinese reli- gions Mohammedanism made an excellent show- ing, but that it could not hold its own against Christianity.
Secret Sects
China is honeycombed with secret societies, all of which, as the proverb says, " hang out the sign : Virtue practised here." Many of them have an object ultimately political, looking
78 BEX CHRISTUS
toward a change of dynasty, and they are all alike forbidden by the government. No com- plete catalogue of these sects has ever been made, or ever can be made, since the names vary in different places and in the same places at dif- ferent times. New ones are continually appear- ing, some of the old ones seem to die out, and after a long interval the names reappear with a new significance. Thus the I Ho Ch'uan (Boxers), or Fists of Harmony, of 1890, adopted the name of organizations much more than a hundred years old, formed with totally different purposes. Their books are literally manuals, being always copied by hand (as it is dangerous to have blocks cut and printing executed), and to outsiders they are practically inaccessible.
The tenets held are of the most nebulous and composite description, being literally an amal- gam of Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian notions, brewed in one common kettle. Some of the sects practice refining the pill of immortality. Some of them spend their time in sitting on the k'ang, or stove-bed, fixing their minds on vacancy, with a view to seeing worlds unknown. Their exertions are reviewed by a seer, called a " Bright-eye," who explains the symptoms of their experience. Many of them keep accounts with themselves, according to a graded system of merits for virtuous actions (such as relieving distress) and demerits for bad actions (such as failing to pick up paper having characters on
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 79
it). The balance of accounts, wlien audited by the " Bright-eye," represents their standing to date. Some sects make use of a kind of plan- chette by which cliaracters are traced in millet seeds, or in sand, thus revealing the secrets of fate as adumbrated by a " Great Fairy." Some sects simply worship Heaven, having no images, and no ceremonies but the k'otow.
One recently developed but now famous society is called the Ritualists (Tsai-li), and forbids the use of wine, opium, etc., but appears to have no religious basis of any kind. Some of those most zealous in observing these rites are often sincere seekers after truth and gladly adopt Christian it}^ as soon as it is presented to them. Others appear to do so, but after a longer or shorter period go quite back to their former creed, "for," he saith, "the old is better." Some missionaries regard the prevalence of these sects as a great assistance to the intro- duction of Christianity, while others have found them for the most part an obstruction. Many of the best Christians in the Chinese churches have once been adherents of some one of these sects. But there has never been any general movement among them toward Christianity, although such an event is not impossible and perhaps not improbable.
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SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
This mysterious race . . . with the Anglo-Saxons and the Russians, will divide the earth a hundred years hence.
— Sir Lepel Griffin.
The Chinaman is a religious triangle. — Dr. Marsh.
There are people who read the best of the Confucian or Buddhist books, and say that the ideals are good ; but, if such think that the heathen do very well as tliey are, I should like to take them for one half hour through a Foochow street and let them see what life would be without any of the refinement, or health, or human kind- ness that have come to them through the religion of Jesus. — Evelyn Worthley.
Ancestral Worship
The millions of China are bound to the worship of ancestors. From infancy to old age, in every turn of life, in aU seasons of joy or mourning, all are in some way associated with this very ancient custom. The fol- lowers of Confucius, the Buddhist, the Taoist, rich and poor, emperor and people, alike are influenced by it. This custom existed two thousand years before Confu- cius, but he confirmed its hold upon the people.
. . . Once a year, in April, a wonderful and touching sight is to be seen in China. It is the spring festival for the dead. Every one visits the graves of his dead. It is a time that they look forward to and prepare for, even more than we do for Christmas or any great occasion. Groups of men, women and children may be seen in brightest, prettiest dresses, the women and girls with flowers in their haii", and all bearing baskets or packages of food, fruit, incense, candles and lanterns, and great bundles of paper clothing. — Mrs. Baldwin.
THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 81
SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS
To be fond of learning is the next thing to knowledge. To be up and doing comes near to perfection. Know what shame is, and you will not be far from heroism.
Given instruction, there will be no distinction of class.
I do not understand life, how can I know death ?
Learning, undigested by thought, is labor lost; thought, unassisted by learning, is perilous.
Men of principle are sure to be bold, but those who are bold may not always be men of principle.
Have no friends not equal to yourself.
Those whose courses are different cannot lay plans for one another.
He who requires much from himself and little from others will keep himself from being the object of resent- ment.
Want of forbearance in small matters confounds great plans.
He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.
During all these forty-three centuries, while Confucius has done much for good government and has set some high moral standards for men, women have reaped no benefit from the teachings of the sage.
— Mrs. Moses Smith.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. Weakness of China's Religions as compared with
Christianity. II. Popular Superstitions in China.
III. Temples, Towers, and Pagodas.
IV. Life of the Lamas.
V. Chinese Religious Education in the Home. a
82 REX CHBISTUS
VI. Evil Effects of Nature Worship. VII. Secret Sects and their Influence. VIII. Ancestral Worship and its Effect upon Character. IX. Feng Shui, or the Science of Luck. X. Why the Proud Literati oppose Christianity. XI. Compare the Confucian White Deer College with
Christian Colleges in England and America. XII. Peking the " Forbidden City."
BOOKS OF REFERENCE General references as before
Bainbridge's " Around the World Tour of Christian
MissioHS." II, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX. Bishop's " The Yangtze Valley and Beyond." Ill, V. Colquhoun's " Overland to China." XII. Douglas's " Society in China." I, V, VIII, X, XL Du Bose's " The Dragon, Tma.ge, and Demon." II, III,
VI, VII, VIII, IX. Dukes's " Everyday Life in China." Ill, V, VIII, IX. Edkins's " Religions in China." I, IT, III, IV, V, VI, VIL Gibson's " Missionary Problems and Methods in South
China." I, V, X. Gilmour's " Among the Mongols." I, III, IV, XII. Gracey's " China in Outline." I. " Great Religions of the World " (Harper, 1901). I. Henry's '■ Ling-nam, or Interior Views of South China."
II, III, IV, V, VI, IX. Hue's " Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China." IV, Johnston's " China and Its Future." X. Legge's " Religions of China." I, II, VI, VII, VIIL Mackay's " From Far Formosa." V. Moule's "New China and Old." II, VII, VHL Muirhead's " China and the Gospel." I. Nevius's "China and the Chinese." U, VI, VII, VIII,
IX.
TBE RELIGIONS OF CHINA 83
Report of Shanghai Conference, 1877. I, II, VI, VII,
VIII. Rockhill's " Land of the Lamas." II, IV, XII. Speer's " Missions and Politics in Asia." I, II, VII, VIIL Wilson's " China." IX, XIL Williamson's " Journeys in China." I, II, XII.
Articles on China in Periodicals : —
Atlantic, Vol. .52, " John Chinaman, M.D." VIIL Eclectic, Vol. 82, " Feng Shui." IX. Living Age, Vol. 68, " Peking." XII. Review of Reviews, Vol. 28 (from Nouvelle Revue), "Chinese Magic." II, IX.
CHAPTER III
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA
In a series of outlines such as are contained in the present book it is out of the question to make a comprehensive study of the peculiar people whom we are considering. All that can be attempted in this chapter is to select a few salient points, with a view especially to show how they are related to the effort to bring to the Chinese a practical knowledge of Christian- ity. The first impression which the traveller receives on visiting China is the vast numbers of its people. The teeming millions appear like a hive of bees, like a nest of ants, like a swarm of insects in the air. We have already referred to the various guesses at the possible population of the empire, and there is no reason why, if that figure is insisted upon, we may not consent to the estimate of four hundred millions as a total. But these words convey no definite idea to any mind, and are much less efficient than a computation of the inhabitants to a square mile, which vary from a relatively small number in the mountainous and sparsely settled regions, up to five hundred, eight hundred, and in some
84
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 85
exceptional districts perhaps more than two thousand ! A part of the Great Plain of China is certainly one of the most densely populated sections of the planet, a fact which has important bearings on many of the problems which concern the future of the empire. This incomputable number of human beings are related to one another in a way elsewhere unexampled.
Solidarity of Chinese Society. — Through the long millenniums of Chinese history the pro- cesses of unification have been steadily at work, so that there is in Chinese society a solidarity which does not and cannot elsewhere exist. The common study of common text-books con- tinued for ages, the contemplation of the same ideals, and the perpetual effort to impress them upon every thinking mind, have brought about this striking result. In western lands we are familiar with the thought of the individual as the social unit, and the process of individualiza- tion begins early, and is soon completed. In China, on the other hand, the family, or the clan, is the unit, and the individual is but a cog in a long series of wheels, which are all moved by the same common impulse, and inevitably in the same direction. To continue the mechanical illustration, cogs, wheels, cylinders, shafts, belts, upper and lower alike, are all responsive to the rhythmic revolutions of the great turbine far below, which for ages has gone on its unchang- ing way. It is conceivable that each unit in
86 BEX CHRISTUS
this long series might be persuaded of the theo- retical fact that its motion is abnormal and in the wrong dire'ction, and yet recognize its help- lessness and the hopelessness of any alteration. For down under the turbine is the great river, and as the river flows so goes the shaft, belt, cylinder, wheel, and cog.
This exaggerated simile is not suggested as exhibiting realities, for it is happily far from doing so, but only to set forth the impression made on the mind of one who deliberately sets himself to the task of altering, intellectually and morally, the complex phenomena of an empire like China. In China no person, man, woman, or child, is a free agent. There are not only the general social obligations proceeding from an intricate mass of well-settled principles and precedents, but there is a forest of " personal equations " to be reckoned with. A father has power over his children which is not less abso- lute than that of the most imperial monarch. He may even kill his offspring, or sell his adult children into slavery. Their property is his property, and as long as the father lives their families are under his control. This tyranny of the upper generation extends through a great variety of ramilications, and is especially efficient in subordinating the younger and the feminine portions of the family. It is not merely objec- tive authority which weaves a web of entangle- ment about all Chinese, but the scarcely less
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 87
potent bonds of sentiment, and especially custom, which may be said to be the real divinity of most of the people of China. What has been done may be done, what has not been done is for that reason outlawed. The phrase which denotes heresy in Chinese, is literally " a different doc- trine," and its antithesis is " true learning," to wit, that which is everywhere taught and which ought to be taught. From data like these it is easy to infer that into this changeless race no new ideas can penetrate, or penetrating can find lodgment. Yet while all that has been said represents but a part of the cast-iron theory of Chinese environment, God has not made the soul of any race impervious to spiritual truth. When Chinese once come to a perception of the existence of a Heavenly Father, their instincts of filial piety show them the necessity of obedience to him, and neglect of it as a capital sin. The solidarity of the family is a two-edged sword, and it may work for the toleration and diffusion of a divine truth as well as against it. The density of population, and the intricate ramifi- cations of family and social life, afford so many more avenues through which new and vitalized conceptions of duty and privilege may every- where find their devious ways.
Fixity of Residence. — It is a Buddhist saying, that " when one individual attains to the path, nine generations ascend to the skies." One of the most striking contrasts between the Occiden-
88 REX CffRISTUS
tals and the Chinese is the instability of location among the former, and the opposite in the latter. Most Chinese are born, live, and die in the same place without having been anywhere or seen anything worth mentioning. But even when they " go far and fly high," it is still true that " the world has a million roosts but only one nest." " The old soil is hard to leave," we hear them say, and so it is. They are in reality anchored in unconscious Confucian bondage to the graves of their ancestors, and it is these, not their adobe hovels, which it is hard to leave, for the reason that sacrifices to ancestors constitute a large part of the duty of filial descendants. Given, then, fixity of residence added to social and family solidarity, when persecution arises from within a family because one of its members has struck out a new route in accordance with " another doctrine," we have need of patience and of much faith. Sometimes it is possible for one to avail himself of the scripture suggestion to fly to another city, but more frequently, for a variety of reasons, this is impracticable. In such cases it is a satisfaction to know by the crucial test of actual experience and observation that the Lord is able, even under these adverse con- ditions, both to keep and to deliver his children. It not infrequently happens that it is the ex- emplary behavior of those thus harassed which wins the obdurate hearts of their persecutors, who are often most literally their tormentors.
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 89
There is in the epistles of the New Testament no exhortation to steadfastness which is not equally and peculiarly applicable to Chinese Christians, often walking in a narrow and thorny path ; and happily there is no promise to those that endure unto the end which is not likewise veri- fied in the history of the Chinese martyrs, living and dead.
Unity in Variety. — At first sight all Chinese look alike, but upon a better acquaintance they are seen to have striking differences among themselves, not merely as regards separate prov- inces in parts of the empire mutually distant, but even in regions adjacent to one another. Yet, on the other hand, every Chinese is himself China in small. Their postulates, their ideals, their motives, and their methods are so much alike, that being excellent judges of human nature they have only to look at themselves in the glass and they see also everybody else. It is in this way that Christianity is able to bring to bear its most irrefragable proofs. Those who know human nature and their own nature only too well, and then see others with that same nature essentially and inexplicably modified by unknown forces, are in a mood to be willing to hear what it is that is able to achieve such re- sults. A confirmed gambler, or still more an inveterate and incurable opium-smoker, lost to the " Five Relations," and dead to shame, when rescued and made into a new man is such a wit-
90 REX CHRISTUS
iiess to the power of an endless life as cannot be refuted or ignored. Opium-smoking and gam- bling are, indeed, the greatest vices of the Chinese race, but they are only more obtrusive and not less harmful than the wrath, bitterness, and re- viling, which may be said to be invariable con- comitants of Chinese social life, to an extent and to a degree of which in w^estern lands it is difficult to form any adequate notion. It is in these traits first of all that moral reformation is to be sought, and if it is found it is a sign of new forces at work, as rudimentary buds are the promise and prophecy of a coming spring.
Unity in variety and variety in unity is one of the most marked characteristics of the Chi- nese race. It is itself the product of causes which have been operant during unknown millenniums upon incomputable millions of people, " dura- tion multiplied by numbers," on a scale never elsewhere even imagined. It is this which gives rise to the cohesion of Chinese with one another, a quality so universal and so remarkable that it resembles chemical attraction. Their guilds and secret societies hold together without the aid of law, often against law, with a tenacity which cannot be surpassed.
Industry and Poverty. — There are thus elements in the Chinese character of great sta- bility and strength. Nothing is required to bring them fully out but a great motive, and this Christianity can supply and does supply.
1 THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 91
When it has been assimilated by the Chinese it will not improbably take on new types, as it has so often done before. The experience of the past few years is wholly sufficient to make it certain that Chinese Christians will be the equal of any Christians, and that some of them are so already. Yet Christianity has to overcome formidable obstacles even to get the slenderest footing in China. There is, indeed, no system of caste, but there is a broad gulf between the different classes of society. The learned and the unlearned live in different worlds, and to pass from the lower to the higher seems hope- less and impossible. It is a fact of importance that in China poverty has never been a disgrace, and that some of the most stimulating ideals placed before every learner are stories of those who, by singleness of purpose and perseverance, have surmounted incredible obstacles and won the two favorite objects of Chinese pursuit, name and gain. It is one of the melancholy phenomena in China that despite the unrivalled and tireless industry of its inhabitants, poverty is the key-note of this great empire. Its causes are many and complex. Its manifestations are protean and universal.
Puzzling Problems. — The most hopeful phi- lanthropist is overwhelmed with the continental scope of the problems thus suggested. The most ardent evangelist finds himself confronted with preliminary puzzles which must assuredly
92 REX CHRISTUS
give him pause. Men, women, children are in bondage to the inexorable necessity of, in some way, securing the means of subsistence. They who have nothing to eat in the life which now is — how shall they command time to be told, in dimly comprehended language, of a life to come in which eating has no place ? It is in China if anywhere that one may fall back upon the comfort embodied in the crowning proof of the divinity of the Master's message that " to the poor the gospel is preached." It is among them that some of the most conspicuous examples of Christian fidelity are to be found, that some of the most intelligent recipients and most earnest promulgators of the faith are to be met. The margin between the scanty subsist- ence which is only adequate to enable one to exist, but not to live, and bare necessities, is so narrow that he who undertakes the organization and the administration of a Christian community in such an environment, at once raises socio- logical questions which permanently retain one of the leading peculiarities of Banquo's ghost, they " will not down."
The religious innovator probably puts into the hands of his inquirers the gospels first of all, and in them the learner reads with joy the pre- cept : " Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou awa3^" Unless he receives what is technically termed a loan, but by which is usually meant a
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 93
transfer of money in cases of emergency, with- out interest and probably not to be repaid, the petitioning adherent will be dragged to the yamen and permanently imprisoned for default of taxes on land (not improbably land which is really non-existent, that is, land which, owing to mismeasurements, has been extinguished by transfers to its neighbors, nothing but the taxes remaining to mark the site). Unless a widow with six children, nearly all of them small, and all of them " of no use," receives timely assist- ance in the month of April, her crumbling house will come down over her head in the rains of July. Unless a sum of money, borrowed at the ruinous rate of two per cent a month, is at once repaid (which can only be accomplished b}^ help from the foreign friend, the only real one known), the remaining half acre of land must be sold to pay the debt, and the family reduced to beggary. Each of these is a bona fide and an exigent case ; each presses for immediate settle- ment, and unhappily each is a precedent.
Can one interfere in an ancient, crystallized civilization like that of China and not do more harm than good? How is it possible in the face of woes like these not to interfere ? With dilemmas of this sort the " Foreigner in Far Cathay " is perpetually confronted, and if he is able to formulate or to discover any rule, or even any principle which is adequate to guide his steps, his experience will be exceptional and peculiar.
94 EEX CHRISTUS
Sentiment toward Foreigners. — With such a vast background as has been outlined in a pre- vious chapter, it is not strange that the Chinese look upon their own history as that of the human race as a whole, ignoring as irrelevant and un- important what lies outside of and beyond their national experience. This places the foreign religious reformer in the position of an alien in- truder, against whom is every presupposition, and in whose favor there is, for the most part, nothing at all. It is on this account, if on no other, most important that those who wish effi- ciently to influence Chinese thought, and to awaken Chinese religious emotions, should, in advance of their overt efforts, have a reasonably clear conception of what it is that they are to exert their strength upon, and what things are to be left alone ; what things are to be established, and what things are to be taken for granted. It is therefore most desirable to have had an intelligent and a sympathetic study of what already exists, as a precedent qualification for intelligent exertion to that end.
The instinctive dislike of the foreigner on the part of the Chinese is not without a firm historical warrant. It is also exactly paralleled by their undisguised contempt for their own countrymen from other and especially distant provinces, who are frequently referred to by nicknames which express in stinging epithets the innate disdain felt for them. They are not
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 95
only constantly spoken of as barbarians, but are treated as foreigners, and when away from home are placed under numerous and permanent disa- bilities. This is true, for example, of Cantonese merchants doing business not merely at the far north, but in the adjacent province of Fukien, of the men from Shansi who are all over the empire, and of those from Shantung, who are dubbed louts and bumpkins. It is a remarkable fact that the Chinese seldom or never boast of their great empire, and of its persistent survival triumphant " o'er the wrecks of time " ; they merely assume it as a matter of course. They do not, like some sensitive peoples, inquire what you " think of our institutions." They do not care what you think, or what any one thinks, and the very idea of such a thing is altogether foreign to their intellectual outfit.
Patriotism. — Their conspicuous lack of any- thing like what we term patriotism has attracted much remark, especially in view of the strikingl}^ opposite qualities of the Japanese. Patriotism in a rudimentary form does exist, and it can, and perhaps will, be developed, but at present it is replaced by a blind but powerful national feel- ing, unorganized, inchoate, and for the most part dumb as well as blind, but susceptible of being mightily aroused with startling and unforeseen results. The extremely delicate and often dangerous position of foreigners environed by conditions like this has been made manifest to
96 BEX CHRISTUS
the world, and it is important to understand that these factors of national life and of inter- national relations are to be permanent. Like friction in machinery, the depth of mineral deposits, or the trend of a mountain range, they must be taken account of as existent and, at present, unalterable facts.
Conservatism. — That trait of the Chinese which is included under the general term con- servatism is the instinctive effort to retain intact the priceless heritage of the mighty past. Con- fucius was that one of the ancients who most effectively determined the key-note of the thought and the life of the Chinese race, and it was done by reverence and admiration for the ancients, and by struggling at all costs to imi- tate their example. Thus the face of the mas- ter was definitely and deliberately turned to the past, and the face of China has been in like manner turned in the same direction ever since. It is this which has tended to make real progress in China difficult, if not impossible, and this it is which gives rise to one of the greatest puzzles in considering the history of the empire, how it has contrived to be a persistent exception to the otherwise universal law that a nation and a race must either advance or die ; whereas the Chi- nese appear to have declined either to advance or to die, and have gone on their way moulded by the ideals and clinging to the ideas of the past down to this present time.
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 97
That this process can no longer be continued has become dimly obvious even to the most con- servative Manchus and Chinese. But what to do about it they cannot and will not decide. They prefer to drift with the current rather tlian to attempt to steer in waters hitherto un- known, and under conditions which, for the most part, they but vaguely apprehend. It thus becomes plain why it is that the Chinese are so phenomenally destitute of initiative, and how it is that as individuals in their experience, and as a nation and a race in their history, they have so often illustrated that definition of the con- servatives as " those who, when they got into hot water, stayed there lest they should be scalded." The typical Confucianist who re- gards the beginning and the ending of all wis- dom as comprised in the doctrine of reciprocity as taught by the master, is inevitably annoyed that an attempt should be made to add anything to, or to subtract anything from, this thesis, espe- cially by foreigners from countries whose civili- zation — such as it is — dates but from a time when China was practically as old as now, and whose ancestors, at the time of China's greatest splendor, were wild men in the woods.
How a Chinese Scholar views Christianity. — In the essay of Mr. P'eng Kuang Yu, at the Parliament of Religions (quoted in the preced- ing chapter), he takes pains to show that what is called religion is of no service to China and
9S El:X CHBISTUS
the Chinese, "Granting that the belief in heaven and hell and the final judgment is well founded, he who has tasted the pleasures derived from the fulfilment of his duties to society, has already ascended into heaven, and he who allows the lust of the flesh to defile his heart and per- vert the use of his senses, has already entered hell. What need is there in troubling the Great Lord of the Eastern Mountain of the Taoist, the Yen Lo of the Buddhists, and the Christ of the Christians to judge the dead after death and reward every man according to his deserts ? " In the closing paragraph of an essay by far the longest at the Parliament, he disclaims his fitness to treat of religion at all, on the ground that " the progress of Christianity does not concern Confucianists in the least." He endeavors to make it appear, by reiterated assertion, that while it seems that missionaries (especially from the United States) come from a highly respectable class of society, they meet in China only the very dregs of the people, that they are constantly and inevitably deluded as to the character of their converts, and that "they make no attempt to study the political institutions and the educational principles of the Chinese people, and aim only to carry out their own notions of what is right."
In another passage he says : "After all, to do reverence to spirits is to do nothing more than to refrain from giving them annoyance, and to
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 99
do reverence to Heaven is nothing more than to refrain from giving it annoyance. On points like this the ritual code is full and explicit. There is consequently no demand for other reli- gious works." "What the Confucianists call things spiritual is nothing more than the law of action and reaction, which operates upon matter without suffering loss, and which causes the sea- , sons to come round without deviation. What priests of the two sects (Taoism and Buddhism) call things spiritual, consist of prayers and repentance, which they make use of as a means of practising deception upon the people by giv- ing out that they can reveal the secrets of hap- piness and misery thereby. As a rule, they are men given to speculations on the invisible world of spirits, and neglectful of the requirements and duties of life. For this reason they are employed by public functionaries to ofhciate on occasions of public worship, and at the same time they are despised by the Confucianists as the dregs of the people." "The right principles of action can only be discovered by studying the waxing and the waning of the active and the passive elements as set forth in the 'Book of Changes,' and surely cannot be understood by those who believe in what the priests call the dispensations of Providence." "If by living according to the dictates of nature, and by sup- pressing the desires of the flesh, one arrives at a perfect agreement with nature, and obtains a
100 REX CHRISTUS
complete mastery over desires, such a one Bud- dhists call a Buddha, Taoists a Genius, and Christians a child of God, . . . All philosophi- cal systems recognise some ideal state of human perfection, though it is known under different names. It seems rather unnecessary for think- ers of different schools to attack the opinions of one another, for owing to the difference of nat- ural endowments and social surroundings, all men cannot possibly arrive at the same opinion on any subject."
And once more this learned Chinese Celsus, after explaining how the better class of Chinese looked with indifference upon missionaries until "a diplomatic officer of high rank lent his power- ful testimony to the support of the missionary cause," adds that since then "every self-respect- ing man has studiously avoided the sight of missionaries, knowing that their chief object is to undermine by their teaching what he holds dear. The turbulent element of the population, however, often finds it to their interest to turn Christian." "Christian missionaries in China can do neither good nor harm to the power of Confucianism by spreading the doctrines they espouse, because they associate only with the dregs of the people, or educated men of loose morals!" "An increase in the number of con- verts is considered as a measure of the success of missionary labors, and may be made the subject of boast on the part of the missionary
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concerned, in his reports to those who sent him. Even if there are law-abiding individuals among the converts, it may be asserted with confidence that there are no intelligent and educated persons among them, for the reason that no intelligent and educated person will embrace the religion of another people."
Mace Characteristics
These copious quotations from the first author- ized, and in a manner semi-official, exponent of Confucianism to the western world, ought to make it clear how Chinese conservatism bars the mind and the soul to an apprehension, not to say reception, of the real meaning of Chris- tianity and a Christ. Chinese society is compact, and highly organized after an ancient pattern. There is a mutual responsibility which is more carefully developed than in any other land, which, beginning with one's mundane existence, follows him to its close, implicating even ances- tors and posterity. The complicated involutions of the working of this principle are to a foreigner almost incomprehensible, and to a Chinese are one of the principal factors of his environment.
Under conditions like these, and in the pres- ence of an unknown number of potentially influ- ential enemies, it behooves every Chinese to walk softly, like soldiers who have captured a fort in which there is danger that, by a chance misstep, some unperceived contact mine may be exploded,
102 REX CHBISTUS
and the unhappy blunderer may be maimed or annihilated. Chinese life is full of phenomena of which this is an unhappily accurate analogue- It is therefore not unnatural that one of the most rudimentary presuppositions of all Chinese is, that it is dangerous to give offence, for among- Chinese there are practically no secrets. Every human being is, to a large extent, in the power of a great many others, for whose use of their power there is no guarantee of any sort. The complaint of the scholar and official just quoted, that missionaries are in the habit of receiving among their followers every variety of rascal which China affords, and of which, as he says, the supply is inexhaustible, is probably based upon very narrow premises, and upon possible facts looked at through spectacles strongly col- ored by prejudice. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants vigorously repudiate it, and for the same reason, that in either case it must be fatal to the objects which they have in view. Never- theless, in the former case there is overwhelming evidence, and never more so than in the years since the Boxer failure, that there is more than mere rumor in these allegations. Bad men do worm themselves into both branches of the Christian church in China, however vigilant the shepherds may be, and it is mainly due to the trait which has just been mentioned. It is a common circumstance in China that every one knows a fact, except the person whom it espe-
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 103
cially concerns. No one likes to tell what is disagreeable, and as a rule, if there is any fear of unpleasant consequences to the witness no one will tell it.
Talent for Indirection. — It is this which makes it so difficult for the most conscientious and dis- creet missionary to be quite sure that he is in possession of all the needed data in any given case. The difficulty in getting at " the bottom facts" frequently is that there are no "facts" available, and, as the pilots say, " no bottom." "Who told you that?" is the first indignant inquiry of an accused Chinese, and unless the accuser is phenomenally sure of his ground and ready for all five acts of a most dramatic drama, he is quite as likely to withdraw the charge upon a plea of misunderstanding as to sub- stantiate it. If it is insisted upon, he knows that the other party to the case will " go after " him, a compound verb of fateful meaning, for in China no one desires to be gone after. When the Christian church has been firmly established these Chinese traits become gold-plated and silver-plated with Christian obligations and tra- ditions ; but let there come a time of special strain and stress, and the gold and silver plating will in many cases (not, however, in all) wear off, exposing the baser metal beneath. This is that reversion to type which all scientists take account of, and of which the history of Chris- tianity, even in our own land at the present day,
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has always been full. It is after an extended experience of this fact in its larger meanings that one apprehends the significance of the biblical references to the third and fourth generation. No less time than that is required for the re- generation of a race, so that every fibre of the moral and the spiritual nature may be instinc- tively responsive to the new life, and a Christian lieredity may have appropriate time in which to do its work.
Suspicion and Distrust. — Connected with the last-mentioned race characteristic is another, per- haps rather Oriental than Chinese, a mutual sus- picion which looks for danger everywhere, and like a hunted animal is ever on the alert for foes concealed. It is literally impossible for those reared in the Christian atmosphere, in which even the most threatening of commercial and financial tyrannies is rightly called a " trust," to compre- hend the conditions which prevail where no one wholly confides in any one, and where this mutual absence of confidence is on all hands much more than justified. Every one of those "Five Re- lations " so much vaunted in China is, from this cause, filled with gall and bitterness. The stranger from abroad finds himself the object of a pro- found distrust, which he is helpless to dispel, or even to mitigate. It is this which gives rise to riots and to massacres, born from that " evil heart of unbelief" v/hich finds it impossible to credit the existence of a good motive when a
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 105
bad one can be suggested. Even this, however, may be lived down, and in the very places where they once occurred there may, at last, be estab- lished the forms of a reciprocal good-will not again readily interrupted. But this requires time, tact, and indefinite patience. Yet it is a singular and instructive fact that, once past the preliminary stages, it is easier to gain the con- fidence of the average Chinese for the average foreigner, than a like confidence of the Chinese in one another, and this whether the question be one of objective fact, or of trustworthiness in the handling of money.
The bearing of all this on the complicated relations of everyday life must be left to the more or less vivid imagination of the reader. Its relation to the exigencies of the more diffi- cult cases of discipline in the native church is too serious to be omitted. Here is the faith and patience of the saints ; and here, also, will Christianity establish itself as able to do what unaided human nature could never by any pos- sibility compass.
Untruthfulness and Insincerity. — Another phase of the same side of the Chinese character is its innate untruthfulness under ofiven condi- tions. This does not mean that the Chinese are a nation of liars, for they are not. On the contrary, there is adequate reason to believe them to be by far the most truthful of Asiatics. But it does signify that under certain stress of
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danger or fear every Chinese will either tell a falsehood or he will tell nothing at all. This is done by an innate as well as by a cultivated instinct, like that of the serpent that slides into the jungle, or the bull-frog that dives into a mud-hole. There has never been any more question in regard to the legitimacy of such a proceeding on the part of the Chinese than on that of the snake or the frog. It is both na- ture and second nature. The Chinese have many and conspicuous virtues, among which are their faithfulness to duty, their sobriety, their unfailing industry, their unequalled patience, their inextinguishable cheerfulness, manifesting itself in blooming flowers, in warbling birds, and smiling faces, even in the midst of deep poverty, gloomy prospects, and heavy hearts. All these are wonderful and admirable endowments. And here, on the other hand, we have the chief fault of all, their deep-rooted, all-pervading insin- cerity both of word and deed.
The last of the "Five Constant Virtues," sincerity, appears to be " constant " only in its absence. This is true in every relation of life, from the top of the social ladder to the very base, and all through and through, Christianity aside. Many true things are said in China, many sincere acts are done, many heai-ts do not fail to beat responsive to duty and to honor, but one can never be sure which words, which acts, which hearts are the ones to be trusted. The
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philosophy of this grave defect in the Chinese character, this is not the place to examine. Of the fact itself there is no doubt. Every Protes- tant missionary is anxious to have his flock of Christians such as fear God and work righteous- ness, but in the effort to compass this end he not infrequently finds that when endeavoring to investigate the " facts " in any case he is chasing a school of cuttlefish through seas of ink. The conscience of those who have been born into a new life is not suddenly transformed, yet the change does take place and upon a large scale. When once it has been accomplished, a new force has been introduced into the Chinese Empire, a salt to preserve, a leaven to pervade, a seed to bring forth after its kind in perpetually augmenting abundance and fertility.
Saving One's ''Face." — It is an integral part of both Chinese theory and practice that realities are of much less importance than appearances. If the latter can be saved, the former may be altogether surrendered. This is the essence of that mysterious " face " of which we are never done hearing in China, the significance and relations of which can never be fully apprehended by any foreigner. The world is conceived of as in Shakespeare, under the figure of a theatrical stage, "and all the men and women merely players." The line of Pope might be the Chinese national motto : " Act well your part, there all the honor lies ; " not, be it
108 REX CHRISTUS
observed, doing well what is to be done, but consummate acting, contriving to convey the appearance of a thing or a fact, whatever the realities may be. This is Chinese high art; this is success. It is self-respect, and it in- volves and implies the respect of others. It is, in a word, " face." The preservation of " face " frequently requires that one should behave in an arbitrary and violent manner merely to em- phasize his protests against the course of current events. He or she must fly into a violent rage, he or she must use reviling and perhaps impre- catory language, else it will not be evident to the spectators of the drama, in which he is at the moment acting, that he is aware just what ought to be done by a person in his precise situation ; and then he will have " no way to descend from the stage," or in other words, he will have lost " face."
We have just seen, in the citations from the essay of Mr. P'eng, that the well-bred Confu- cianist is not deceived by Taoist fables or by Buddhist myths. He is a triple-plated agnostic, with a short creed, and all his duties in plain sight, and capable of being duly inventoried every morning. But in practice a Confucianist is, after all, but a human being; and while he believes nothing which he cannot see, he also believes everything which others believe, more especially at times when he is driven into a cor- ner. Thus the firm basis is laid for that social
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dynamite of which we have spoken in the pre- ceding chapters, composed of angry human passions mingled with varying proportions of the supernatural and the infra-natural.
In the language of a former British consular officer of long experience and wide observation (Mr. T. T. Cooper) : " Underneath their practi- cal and sensible exterior there lurks a sleeping demon of the blindest superstition, which re- quires only the slightest touch to change them into insensible madmen, reckless of life, and savage as wild beasts ; and this dreadful curse is not only common amongst the uneducated, but amongst the literati and governing classes also." Of this phenomenon extensive exhibits have recently been made in sight of the whole world, and we need not dwell upon them in this con- nection. It is well, however, to mention that there is an analogous set of phenomena in ordi- nary social life, due to the sudden exigencies of "face." No man, no woman, no child with whom one has, or can have, anything to do but is always potentially on the verge of a " strike," because in some way, not unlikely quite un- known and incomprehensible to his foreign employer, the employee's " facial angle " has been unduly deflected. Cooks, sewing women, coolies, office-boys, shroffs, compradores, teachers, upon due provocation, all exhibit this trait ; and after a due recognition of their point of view, one and all may return to their avocations
110 BEX CHBISTUS
with a smile of triumph, as of one who has nobly done his whole duty ; or, their point of view not being that of their employer, their path thenceforth curves off into a parabola and they are seen no more.
Christianity a Solvent. — The group of traits here mentioned reaches down into the deepest roots of Chinese character and life. There is abundant evidence, external and internal, that they have always constituted a part of the intel- lectual and moral equipment of the race. Many of them are wholly incompatible with a thorough- going acceptance of Christian ideals, and for that reason alone there are many who know the Chinese well to whom the vision of a China transformed, in such a way that these peculiarly Chinese peculiarities shall be essentially modi- fied or abolished, is "an iridescent dream." The question ought to be raised, but for readers of a book like this it need not be argued. The gos- pel of God is always and everywhere adequate to the redemption of the children of men, and its adaptations to the Chinese have been demon- strated for many hundred years and on an ever enlarging scale. In the century which has now opened it is certain that such a number and variety of convincing object-lessons will be added that all those not altogether incapable of per- ceiving spiritual phenomena will be compelled to admit that Christianity has a vital relation to the welfare of China and the Chinese.
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To those immediately concerned in the intro- duction and the dissemination of this faith there are two capital problems : How so to present the gospel as to win the non-Christian Chinese to hear it; how to bridge the permanent gulf between races ; how to fulfil the Master's last great commission in the Land of Sinim. On the other hand : How to plant and to train the native churches that they may strike a deep tap- root into native soil, independent of their origin ; how to prepare the way by which the Spirit of God may overcome inborn inertia, timidity, and conformity to custom, plant " truth in the inward parts," and bring forth the fruits of that Spirit in the life ; how so to prepare the way that the churches of China, like those of the New Testa- ment, may be self-propagating, so that the word of the Lord may sound forth from them in every province and dependency of the Chinese Empire.
WAYMARKS IN THE HISTORY OF MISSIONS
IN CHINA
Fhom 1800 TO 1902
1800. Attention turned to China by discovery of Cliinese
manuscript in Britisli Museum. 1804. British and Foreign Bible Society formed. 1806. Kobert Morrison of England sails from New York for
China. 1814. New Testament translated. First Chinese baptized. 1818. Old Testament translated. Anglo-Chinese College.
Malacca. 1821. Morrison completes his Chinese Dictionary.
112 BEX CHEISTUS
1830. Arrival first Am. missionaries — Bridgman and Abeel. Canton. (Cong.)
1834. Dr. Peter Parker opens hospital at Singapore.
1842. Treaty of Nanking. Five ports opened. Soon occu- pied by twelve missionary societies.
1844. Mission Press at Macao. Removed next year to
Ningpo. 1860 to Shanghai. (Pres.) First Boarding School for Girls. Ningpo. By Miss Aldersey. (Eng.) Independent.
1845. First (Am.) Boarding School for Girls. Ningpo.
(Pres.) Miss Aldersey 's united with this in 1857. 1850. T'ai P'ing Rebellion. Twenty million lives lost. First Foundling Asylum. (Ger.) Boarding School for Girls. Shanghai. (Cong., now Pres.)
1855. First Theological Seminary. Amoy, (Eng.)
1856. Second Opium War.
1858. First (Am.) Theological Seminary. Foochow. (Cong.)
1859. Boarding School for Girls. Foochow. (Meth.)
1860. Treaty of Tientsin. Many privileges granted for-
eigners. College at Tungcho, Chihli. (Cong.) Boarding School for Girls. Ningpo. (Bap.) 1862. Hospital and two Dispensaries. Peking. (Eng.) Mission Press. Foochow. (Meth.) Girls' Boarding School. Hongkong. (Eng.) Long-
heu. (Ger.)
1864. Bridgman School for Girls. Peking. (Cong.)
1865. China Inland Mission.
1866. Telegraph from Peking to outside world. College Tungchow, Shantung. (Pres.)
1867. Girls' Boarding School. Chefoo. (Pres.)
1868. Mission Press. Peking. (Cong.) Hospital and Dispensary. Hankow. (Eng.) Girls' Boarding School. (Pres.)
1870. Tientsin Massacre.
James Gilmour sent to Mongolia. (Eng.) Girls' Boarding School. Amoy. (Dutch Ref.)
1872. Female Seminary. Canton. (Pres.)
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 113
1872. First Opium Refuge. Hangchow. (Eng.)
1873. Mauchuria occupied by U. P. Church, Scotland. First woman physician appointed to China. (Meth.)
1874. First Anti-Foot-Binding Association. Amoy, (Eng.) First Bible Women's Training School. Swatow.
(Bap.)
1875. Girls' Boarding School. Kiukiang. (Meth.) Hospital and Dispensary. Ningpo. (Bap.)
1876. Railroad opened, Shanghai, and four new ports. Girls' Boarding School. Amoy. (Eng.)
1877. Hospital and two Dispensaries for Women and Chil-
dren. Foochow. (Meth.) Shanghai Conference. Educational Association of
China formed at Tientsin. Bible Women's Training School. Peking. (Meth.)
1878. Great famine.
Women's Hospital and Dispensary. Wuchang. (Epis.)
1879. St. John's College. Shanghai. (Epis.) College at Soochow. (Southern Meth.)
1880-1890. Opium Refuges in thirty-one different places.
Schools of various kinds for girls in nineteen different
places. Hospitals and Dispensaries for women in fourteen
different places.
1880. First Woman's Hospital built at Tientsin.
1881. Viceroy's Hospital built at Tientsin. Anglo-Chinese College. Foochow. (Meth.)
1882. Shansi Mission opened.
1884. Beginning of Industrial Institutions. Famous " Cambridge Band" organized.
1885. Seamen's Institute. Hongkong. (Eng.)
1886. Christian College. Canton.
American Student Volunteer Association formed. Medical Missionary Association of China formed at Shanghai.
1887. First schools for the blind. Canton, Peking, and
Hankow. Children's Home. Amoy. (Eng.) I
114 REX CHRISTUS
1888. First school for deaf mutes. Chefoo. (Pres.) University at Nanking. (Melh.) Victoria Home and Orphanage. Hongkong. (Eng.) 1890-1900. Opium Refuges in seventeen different places.
Schools of various kinds for girls in thirty -six differ- ent places. Hospitals and Dispensaries for women in thirty dif- ferent places.
1890. Door of Hope (rescue work), Shanghai. Second Shanghai Conference.
First Leper Asylum. Pakhoi. (Eng.) North China College. Tungcho. (Cong.) Foundling Asylum. Kucheng. To rescue girl infants sentenced to death by parents. (Eng.)
1891. Peking University opened.
1892. British Student Volunteer Union.
Hussey Orphanage and Infirmary. Nanking. (Friends.) 189.3. Foochow College. (Cong.)
Anti-Foot-Binding Society. Ningpo.
1894. First kindergartens in China. Empress presented with New Testament. Natural Foot leagues. Chungking and Shanghai.
1895. China-Japan Treaty.
1896. Ptailroad opened, Tientsin. Scandinavian Volunteer movement. Orphanage at Hinghua. (Meth.) Presbyterian College. Hangchow.
1898. Emperor's Reform Edicts. " Young China " party. Anti-Foot-Binding Society. Nanking.
Girls' College. Foochow. (Cong.) Anglo-Chinese College. Amoy.
1899. Rise of the Boxers.
1900. The Great Persecution.
1902. First Medical College for Women. Canton. (Pres.)
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 115
SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
The grip of the outer world has tightened round China. It will either strangle her or galvanize her into fresh life.
— D. C. BOULGER.
Three empires fill the vision of the future — the United States, Russia, and China. — William Speer.
Topsy-turvy Ways in China
They mount a horse on the right side instead of the left ; the old men play marbles and fly kites, while chil- dren look gravely on ; they shake hands with themselves instead of with each other ; what we call the surname is wi-itten first and the other name afterward ; they whiten their shoes instead of blacking them ; a coffin is a very acceptable present to a rich parent in good health ; in the north they sail and pull their wheelbarrows in place of merely pushing them ; and candlesticks fit into the candle instead of the candle fitting into the candlestick, and so on. . . . China is a country where the roses have no scent and the women no petticoats ; where tlie laborer has no Sabbath day of rest and the magistrate no sense of honor; where the roads have no carriages and the ships have no keels ; where the needle points to the south, the place of honor is on the left hand, and the seat of intellect is supposed to lie in the stomach ; where it is rude to take off your hat, and to wear white clothes is to go into mourning. Can one be astonished to find a literature without an alphabet and a language without a grammar ? — Temple Bar.
The Opium Curse
Assuredly it is not foreign intercourse that is ruining China, but this dreadful poison. . . . Opium has spread with frightful rapidity and heart-rending results through
116 BEX CHRI8TUS
the provinces. Millions upon millions have been struck down by the plague. To-day it is running like wildfire. In its swift, deadly coiirse it is spreading devastation everywhere, wrecking the minds and eating away the strength and wealth of its victims. The ruin of the mind is the most woful of its many deleterious effects. The poison enfeebles the will, saps the strength of the body, renders the consumer incapable of performing his regular duties, and unfit for travel from one place to another. It consumes his substance and reduces the miserable wretch to poverty, barrenness, and senility. . . . Many thoughtful Chinese are apprehensive that opium will finally extirpate the race, and efforts are being made to mitigate the curse.
— Chang Chihtung, in " China's Only Hope."
The Point of View
A Chinese resident in America is said to have written home to his friends a letter from which the following extract is taken : " ^VTiat is queerer still, men will stroll out in company with their wives in broad daylight with- out a blush. And will you believe that men and women take hold of each other's hands by way of salutation? Oh, I have seen it myself more than once. Not only that, but they sit down at table together ; and the women are served first, reversing the order of nature. After all, what can you expect of folk who have been brought up in barbarous countries on the very verge of the world? They have not been taught the maxims of our sages; they never heard of the Rites; how can they know what good manners mean ? We often think them rude and insolent when I'm sure they don't mean it : they're igno- rant, that's all."
Chinese Curiosity
It would reward an Alma-Tadema to depict the Chinese dandies filling all its many balconies, pale and silken
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 117
clad, craning their necks to see, and by the haughtiness of their gaze recalling the decadent Romans of the last days of the empire. Their silken garments, their arched mouths, the coldness of their icy stare, have not yet been duly depicted. . . . The Chinaman may be apparently Indian-like in his stolid manner, but the Chinese woman is not. She is devoured by curiosity. The women flock around, and beg me to take off my gloves and my hat, that they may see how my hair is done, and the color of my hands. Then some old woman is sure to squeeze my feet, to see if there is really a foot filling up all those big boots ; for, of course, all the women here have small feet ; that is, they have them bandaged up, and astonishingly well they get along upon their hoof-like feet. They are very friendly, and bring out chairs and benches before their cottage doors and beg us to sit down, and oifer us tea, or, if they have not got that ready, hot water. But the children cry with terror if I touch them or go too near ; and one little boy, in a school we went into, simply trembled with fear all the time I stood near him to hear him read. — Mrs. Archibald Little.
We do not lack either men of intellect or brilliant talents, capable of learning and doing anything they please, but their movements have hitherto been hampered by old prejudices. — Emperor Kuang Hsu.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. The Opium Habit and Other Elements of Weak- ness in Chinese Character. II. Elements of Strength in Personal and National Life.
III. Poverty and Industry of the Chinese.
IV. Lack of Privacy and Love of Noise. V. Marriage and IMortuary Customs.
VI. What the Chinese Eat and Drink.
118 BEX CHRISTUS
VII. Incouveniences of Travel ui Far Cathay.
VIII. Doctoring in China.
IX. How Women are Handicapped.
X. Infanticide and Footbinding.
XI. " Chinese " Gordon and the T'ai P'ing Rebellion.
XII. Some Epoch-making Treaties.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
General References as before
Ball's " Things Chinese." I, II, VI, IX.
Bishop's " The Yangtze Valley and Beyond." I, IV, VI,
VII, IX, X. Bryson's "John Kenneth Mackenzie." VIII. " Chinese Empire " (Rand, McNally & Co., 1900). IX, X. Colquhouii's " China in Transformation." II, XI, XIL Coltman's " The Chinese." VIII, IX. Douglas's " Society in China." V, VI, VII, IX, X. Dukes's "Everyday Life in China." Y. Edkins's " Religion in China." XI. Gilmour's « Among the Mongols." VI, VIII, IX. Graves's " Forty Years in China." I, II. Gray's " China." I, II, V, VI, IX. Guinness's " In the Far East." VII, IX. Hake's " Story of Chinese Gordon." XI. Henry's " Ling-nam, or Interior Views of South China."
IX, X. Hue's " Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China." Ill, IV,
V, VII. Johnston's " China and Its Future." XI. Lockhart's " Medical Missionary of China." VIII. Nevius's " China and the Chinese." Ill, IV, VI, IX, X. Oliphant's " Lord I^lgin's Mission to China and Japan."
XII. Robson's " Griffith John." XI. Talmage's " Forty Years in South China." X. Williamson's " Old Highways in China." IX.
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA 119
Articles on China in Periodicals: —
Century, Vol. 3, " General Charles George Gordon." XI. Eclectic, Vol. 95, " Romance of Chinese Social Life." I, II. Forum, Vol. 28, " Chinese Daily Life." Ill, IV, VL Harper, Vol. 59, " Last of the Tai Ping Rebellion." XI. Living Age, Vols. 121 and 122, "Manners and Customs in
China." I, II, V. Popular Science, Vols. 33 and 34, " Chinese Marriage and
Funeral Customs." V.
CHAPTER IV
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. PART I
From Earliest Times till near the Close of the Nineteenth Century
At what time Christianity was first brought to the Chinese Empire it is perhaps not possible with certainty to determine. The traditions of the churcli and scattered notices in various writers " lead to the belief that not many years elapsed after the times of the apostles, before the sound of the gospel was heard in China and Chin-India." Those who desire to collect the traces of these early missions will find full (but not entirely uncritical) references to them in the writings of the Abbe Hue. Relative cer- tainty begins with the record of the arrival of the Nestorians, which it is supposed occurred 505 A.D. Nestorius was a monk, and later a presbyter in Antioch, and after the year 428 patriarch of Constantinople. He soon became involved in a controversy in respect to the nature of the union of the human and divine in the person of Christ, and he and his ad- herents were eventually banished from the Roman Empire. Some time after this he died,
120
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 121
no one knows where or when. His adherents found an asylum in the kingdom of Persia, whence they probably came to China. The only record yet found of the presence of this form of Christianity in China is the famous Nestorian Tablet, which was discovered in Si Ngan Fu in the year 1625, by workmen engaged in making excavations for the building of a house. There is no longer room for the small- est doubt in regard to the genuineness of this wonderful relic of the past, the date of which is the year 781, contemporaneous with the semi- anarchic condition of England, in the generation following the death of "the Venerable Bede," and the struggles between the kingdom of Mer- cia and the West Saxons.
The history of the Nestorian church in China contains both an encouragement and a warning. Among a people who, like the Chinese, revere the past because it is the past, the Nestorian Tablet is a convincing witness of the antiquity of the Chinese faith, and of its triumphs during one of the most splendid dynasties.
Roman Catholic Missions
The first effort by Romanists of the medi- eval period was made by John, called Monte Corvino, from the name of a small village near Salerno, where he was born. He was sent by way of India on a mission to the Tartars, reach- ing China in 1291, at the time when the famous
122 BEX CHRISTUS
Kublai Khan was emperor. In 1307 this zeal- ous missionary was to be reinforced by seven Franciscan monks, who were made bishops in advance of their departure, Corvino being ap- pointed archbishop of Peking. Three of the seven died of fatigue on the way, one returned to Europe, and the other three did not reach their destination until 1308. The subsequent history of this wonderful movement resembles the course of those rivers which, flowing through desert wastes, are lost in the sand. Corvino died at a great age after a life of incredible toil. Other faithful and laborious men suc- ceeded him, but the Mongol dynasty soon ran its short life, and the empire was once more in confusion. The Mings, who succeeded to the throne, endeavored to put a stop to all commu- nication with foreign lands, and the Christians were persecuted and slain. So completely were the traces of the past effaced that it was long forgotten that Christianity had ever entered the Celestial Empire at all.
The second period of Roman Catholic mis- sions is separated from the first by a long inter- val of silence. The great Xavier died on the island of St. Johns (Sancian) toward the close of 1552, after heroic and unavailing efforts to obtain an entrance to the hermetically sealed empire. Valignani, the Superior of their mis- sions in the East, did not, however, abandon the apparently hopeless enterprise, but appointed to
CHRISTIAN illSSIONS 123
it a Neapolitan Jesuit named Roger, wlio was soon joined by another Italian whose brilliant career in China has perhaps never been equalled by any other missionary in any land, Matthew Ricci. They effected an entrance into the prov- ince of Kuang-tung in 1-682, disguising their object and adopting the garb of Buddhist priests, which twelve years later was wisely exchanged for that of the literati. The next one and twenty years were occupied with adventures more romantic than mere fiction, in incessant efforts to reach the capital of the empire, Peking. Of these remarkable experiences and triumphs we have full contemporary accounts, which have been invested with still greater interest by the pains taken to set them forth in the vol- umes of the Abbe Hue (" History of Christian- ity in China," etc.).
No detailed mention can be made of the liter- ary, scientific, and miscellaneous labors of Ricci, nor of the work of other distinguished pioneers. The Jesuits achieved notable triumphs, then came a reaction due to a variety of causes, and finally an edict whereby " all missionaries not required at Peking for scientific purposes were ordered to leave the country." In 1747 severe persecutions extended all over China. Many foreigners and converts during this stormy period " suffered death, torture, imprisonment, and banishment." The behavior of the Catho- lic Christians during this trying century and a
124 BEX CHRISTUS
quarter is the most convincing proof of the genuineness of their religion. No better evi- dence of this could have been given by converts anywhere under the skies.
The Situation To-day. — During the past half- century the growth of the Roman Catholic church in China has been great, not in large centres only, but also in all the provinces. In a work by the vicar apostolic of the province of Che-kiang, the English translation of which was issued in 1897, the opinion is expressed that during this time the number of converts has doubled, but the editor confesses that he is unable to obtain any statistics. According to the vicar there are twenty -seven bishops, besides four districts differently organized, and probably three-quarters of a million Christians. Much larger estimates are frequently given, but it is uncertain upon what basis the computation is made, as Catholic statistics usually refer to families, while those of Protestant missions take the number of baptized communicants.
With such different origin, methods, and aims, it is perhaps not surprising that Catholic and Protestant missionaries in China ordinarily meet but seldom, and have none but the most formal relations one with another. There are not only the barriers of such diverse forms of faith, but often also those of nationality and language. There is said to be but one English priest in China, although Germans are numer-
CHIilSTlAN MISSIONS 125
ous, and the other nations of Europe are largely represented. It would be easy to append an extended essay upon the methods of these two branches of the church in China, but it is scarcely worth the space, and must in any case be unsatisfactory, from the lack of that definite acquaintance with many facts in regard to Roman Catholic missions on which either commendation or criticism should be based. It is -certain that they have many faithful and loyal followers who have shown their faith by their works in times of the greatest storm and strain. It is equally certain that many others have but a superficial knowledge of Christianity, and that, especially since the Boxer rising was suppressed, multitudes have flocked to the Roman Catholic standard with a view to revenge. The semi- political management of this great ecclesiasti- cal organization is one of its worst features, another being a frequently well-marked ten- dency to antagonize Protestants by any and every means. One would gladly pass over this as a local and a temporary phase did facts admit. If the present aggressions committed in the name of this church in China are not stopped, there is every reason to fear that they may bring about another outbreak perhaps greater than the last. A frank recognition of this would be of the greatest service to the Chinese, to Protestants, and to that great church which, for the welfare of a great race,
126 REX CHBISTUS
has endured so much persecution and suffered so many martyrdoms.
Protestant Missions
It is not easy for one who lives at the begin- ning of the twentieth century to project himself backward intellectually, in such a way as to comprehend the relations then existing between China and- the lands of the west. From the Chinese point of view their empire had nothing to gain by the visits of these unwelcome stran- gers from the west except that trade was pro- moted, an object which the mandarins professed to view with supreme contempt, and in regard to which they entertained the most fatuous notions. Because large cargoes of tea were shipped to England and to the United States, it was inferred that the inhabitants of these remote and inhospitable lands would otherwise have nothing to drink. Because rhubarb was bought in great quantities, the Chinese logically inferred that the digestion of the barbarians was of such a sort that without this drug they must inevitably die. The records of the inter- course between China and every one of the western nations which dealt with her are full of incidents which show how difficult it was to arrive at any modus vivendi whatever. The conceit and arrogance of the Chinese officials, high and low, passes belief, and it was hand- somely matched by the attitude of the common
CHRISTIAN 3IISSI0NS 1^7
people, who took no pains to conceal their open contempt for the red-haired, blue-eyed monsters who forced themselves upon them year by year, and who year by year became a more and more difficult problem.
In order to incommode the court at Peking as little as possible, the merchants were assigned to Canton as their only port ; and in order the better to control them, they were penned up on an insignificant strip of land which would with difficulty afford pasturage for one or two ambi- tious cows. These were the famous "factories," with a tiny space upon which alone tlie inmates, who were virtual prisoners awaiting their tickets of leave, could take that exercise, the object of which was to the Chinese of that day, as it has been to the Chinese ever since, an insoluble riddle. Yet under even these restrictions and incessant humiliations trade flourished, and then, as too often now, trade had rights which outweighed all other human interests. Perhaps there never was a more typical illustration of the familiar aphorism that corporations have no souls than the career of the British East India Company, both in India and in China. In the former land they deported those who came with the tidings of salvation, for the reason that the knowledge of such an errand would not improb- ably be attended with political troubles, and political troubles would lead to irregularities which might involve the loss of the sacred
128 BEZ CHRISTUS
Trade, which was in reality the idol before which " The Company " bowed, and which alone it worshipped. Like others in different parts of the world since, they were in the China trade "for what there was in it," and for nothing else.
The Pioneer Society. — Modern missionary work in China is naturally divisible into four distinct periods, each terminated by a foreign war. The first period covers the years between 1807 and 1842. Thus we see that it was not until the close of the eighteenth century that the conscience of Protestant Christendom became sufficiently enlightened to contemplate the pos- sibility of endeavoring to do its age-long duty by its fellow-men at the ends of the earth. The beginnings of this enterprise were every- where conducted under difficulties and against opposition such as we cannot now fully compre- hend. The faith which could not only rise against these hindrances, but could at the same time do the work of the church abroad while keeping its missionary fires alight at home, is nothing less than sublime. The cry of Vali- gnani, the successor of Xavier, as he viewed from a distance Chinese mountains dimly defined, is said to have been : " O mighty fortress, when shall these impenetrable gates of thine be broken through ? "
It is to the London Missionary Society that belongs the honor of first undertaking a Protes-
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 129
tant mission to the dense population of China, under conditions which indeed promised but little, and which might well have given pause to any but those animated by the most burning zeal. The first missionary was Robert Morrison, a Northumbrian lad born in 1782, who spent his youth at Newcastle-on-Tyne employed at manual labor for twelve or fourteen hours a day, yet seldom failing to find one or two hours for reading and meditation. Even at work his Bible or some other book was usually open before him. He was not able to obtain many books, but such as he could get he read and re-read with great avidity, a sure sign of an intellectual appetite certain to lead to future results. It is interesting to know that neither his father nor his relatives could for some time be induced to look with favor upon his desire to become a minister, much less his wild plan for missionary work abroad. He had prepared for the divinity scliool at Hoxton by studying between seven at night and six in the morning, during the daytime making boot-trees. He began the study of the Chinese language in London, with a Chinese who happened to be in the country. It was vain to expect a passage in the ships of the East India Company, so Morrison sailed for New York, where he spent some weeks, leaving for China armed with a letter from James Madison, Secretary of State, to the American consul at Canton, where he
130 BEX CHBISTUS.
lived for a year in the factory of some New York merchants. Although the foreigners both in Macao and in Canton were outwardly friendly, Morrison's position was one of extreme delicacy and difficulty. Even a footing on Chinese soil seemed unattainable, and the limitations under which he labored were most disheartening. He was the constant victim of that observation with- out sympathy which Mrs. Browning defined as torture. For a Chinese to teach the language to foreigners was to subject himself to the penalty of death, and almost all the helps to the acquire- ment of the intricate maze of hieroglyphs were at that time lacking. Morrison lived, as we have seen, with the Americans and passed for one, as they were less disliked than the English. But his position was precarious in the extreme, and in less than a year, in company with all the other British, he was driven by political dis- turbances to Macao, where he fared ill.
In 1809 he found, however, a double relief. He was married to the daughter of an English resident in Canton, and he was engaged by the East India Company as Chinese translator at a salary of ,£250 per annum. This gave him a definite status and was an aid rather than a hindrance to the prosecution of his mission, as his translation work assisted him in the study of the language and increased his opportu- nities for intercourse with the Chinese. His life was often endangered by pirates. There
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 131
was in Canton little congenial society, neither the English nor the American residents having any interest in his work or any belief in it. His first child, a boy, died at its birth, and the Chinese objected to its burial. His wife was dangerously ill. His faith and courage were strained to the breaking-point, but he plodded on at his grammar and his dictionary, foun- dation works of inestimable value to later students. The grammar was finished in 1812, sent to Bengal for printing, and never heard of for three years, coming forth at last to be highly appreciated. Morrison printed a tract and a catechism, translated the Acts and the gospel of Luke, a copy of which was burned by the Roman Catholic bishop of Macao as a heretical work. The publication of these books produced a storm of opposition from the Chinese. A special proclamation was issued against him, and those who had assisted him were warned that the penalty was death. ^
A True Yokefellow. — Just at this juncture the Society sent out Rev. Robert Milne and his wife to join the Morrisons, who arrived in July, 1813, but in less than a fortnight the Portuguese governor expelled them from Macao, no assistance being given by the English resi- dents lest their trade should be prejudiced. At this critical period, when it was necessary to try new ways, Milne was admirably adapted to be Morrison's associate. He devoted himself with
132 REX CHRISTUS
great zeal to the study of the language, restrain- ing as he could his impatience to be at work. He was the author of the oft-quoted saying that " to acquire the Chinese is a work for men with bodies of brass, lungs of steel, heads of oak, hands of spring-steel, eyes of eagles, hearts of the apostles, memories of angels, and lives of Methuselah ! "
By the end of 1813 the whole New Testament had been translated, — considering the circum- stances and the difficulties a gigantic achieve- ment. It was agreed to search for a place in the East India islands or the Malay peninsula where the headquarters of the mission might be established, and where Chinese might be trained who could enter China without attract- ing that suspicion which was inseparable from foreigners. Milne spent seven or eight months in prospecting in Java and Malacca, which was selected as the coign of vantage from which to move China. In the same year Morrison baptized his first convert at a spring issuing from the foot of a hill, away from human observation. The East India Company under- took the cost of printing Morrison's Chinese dictionary, upon which they spent £10,000. Mrs. Morrison was ordered to England with her children, returning to China six years later, only to die. Milne established himself at Malacca, where the difficulties were different from those in China, though not less formidable. He had
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 133
made remarkable progress in Chinese, and aided in the translation of the Bible and other works. Morrison was sent on an embassy to Peking with Lord Amherst, an enterprise which failed, owing to the arrogance of the Chinese, but the experience was invaluable to him.
Strong Foundations Laid. — The establishment at Malacca of an Anglo-Chinese college was the next great step, and one in which Morrison endeavored to interest friends at home. The proposal was warmly taken up and Milne was made president. In a report on the condition of Malacca this institution was highly praised by a member of Parliament for its thoroughl}^ sound and efficient work. Reinforcements were now sent out to this "Ultra-Ganges mission." A magazine called the Q-leaner was issued. The presses poured forth pamphlets, tracts, and gospels, both in Malay and in Chinese. Schools were founded, but the people were ignorant and listless. The converts were far from satisfac- tory. Mrs. Morrison and Mrs. Milne had both died, and Mr. Milne himself followed in 1822, after eleven years of most fruitful service. One of his tracts, the " Two Friends," has had a wider circulation perhaps than almost any other Chi- nese publication, and, what is more remarkable, was recently shown, by a formal note of the mis- sionaries scattered all over China, to be still one of the most popular.
Mr. Morrison visited England in 1824-1825,
134 REX CHBISTUS
where he was again married. He was received with great demonstrations of respect, present- ing his Chinese Bible to King George IV. He returned in 1826 to fall upon stormy times. The relations between China and Great Britain were becoming greatly strained. As a prophecy of the coming and inevitable war the political ba- rometer was continually falling. The external issue of the conflict when it came was a demand from the Chinese for the surrender of some nine million dollars' worth of opium, but the real question was the rights of intercourse between other nations and China. In 1833 the Roman Catholics attacked Dr. Morrison, securing the suppression of his presses and his publications. The monopoly of the East India Company was abolished and Dr. Morrison's connection with it ceased. He died in June, 1834, after twenty- seven years of as laborious and fruitful effort as were ever spent by any missionary that ever penetrated the Celestial Empire. This early work is a microcosm in which may be discerned the roots of all that has since been accomplished in the Land of Sinim. Dr. Morrison published more than thirty different works, one of which was his monumental dictionary in six quarto volumes. Of the Bible, twenty-six Old Testa- ment books were translated by him, and the remainder by Dr. Milne under his colleague's supervision. Dr. Morrison's best known con- vert, Liang A-fa, was a useful and a successful
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 135
evangelist who suffered much for his faith and died in 1855. He was the author of a variety of widely circulated tracts, one of which gained great celebrity, because from it Hung Hsiu- ch'uan, who subsequently started the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion, gained his first knowledge of Christianity.
Among the reinforcements sent to the Malacca mission was Dr. W. H. Medhurst, who arrived in 1817, where he labored most industriously for many years. After the death of Dr. Mor- rison he visited Canton and made a voyage of observation along the coast of China as far as northeastern Shantung. After the war with China he lived for thirteen years in Shanghai, where also he was indefatigable. He was the first to issue a Christian trimetrical classic on the plan of the Chinese text-book. His publi- cations in Chinese, in Malay, and in English were more than ninety in number, one of which was a Chinese and English dictionary in two octavo volumes. The lives of the trio men- tioned, like those of the great Indian three — Carey, Marshman, and Ward, — serve to illus- trate the mysterious fact that the pioneers of missions are often the ablest workers, whom it is difficult to equal and impossible to surpass.
Arrival of Americans
It v/as appropriate that the earliest mission- aries from the United States should have been
136 BEX CHRISTUS
sent by the oldest American society, the Ameri- can Board, founded in 1810, fifteen years later than the London Missionary Society. The at- tention of the Board was first called to China by a Christian merchant, Mr. Olyphant, then living at Canton. His vessels were always open and free to missionaries. One of them, named the Morrison, of four hundred tons — a large vessel for those times — was almost a missionary ship. The first recruits were Rev. E. C. Bridg- man and Rev. David Abeel, who arrived Feb- ruary, 1830. The former was soon a secretary of one of the earliest organized efforts to en- lighten the Chinese, called the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, which dates from 1834, and which, within recent years, has a modern successor in Shanghai of great influence and importance. Mr. Bridgman was also one of the originators of the Morrison Education Society, another fruitful seed in the early soil. In 1832 he began the publication of the Ohinese Repository, consisting of papers on subjects of interest and value to those wish- ing to comprehend China. It was issued monthly for twenty years under his editorship and that of Dr. Williams, and contains a history of for- eign intercourse and missions during that time. It is now very scarce. Mr. Bridgman was a prominent member of the Committee of Dele- gates in Shanghai to translate the New Testa- ment, and later the Old Testament. Samuel
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Wells Williams, who was appointed printer to the American Board mission in 1832, was one of those men not infrequently to be met with in the mission field who are endowed with untir- ing industry, great versatility, and an unusual talent both for acquiring and for imparting knowledge. He was one of a party to convey a number of shipwrecked Japanese back to their land in the year 1837. Though the enterprise failed, it was useful in giving that experience which fitted Dr. Williams to be interpreter for an American expedition to Japan in 1853, and again with Commodore Perry in 1854. From 1856 he was secretary of the United States Legation, and took an important part in the negotiation of the treaty of 1859 and of the year following. His greatest work was his " Middle Kingdom," in two volumes, published in 1848 and entirely recast in 1883, which is a standard authority on everything relating to China. Another important contribution to the study of China was his syllabic dictionary, published in 1874.
Beginning of Medical Work. — The name of Dr. Peter Parker is inseparably linked with the early stages of medical work for the Chinese, which has always been so great an aid in over- coming their hostility to foreigners. His first hospital was opened in the Chinese quarter of Singapore in the 3^ear 1834. A year later it was transferred to Canton, special attention
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being given to diseases of the eye and to sur- gical cases. Dr. Morrison had also been con- nected with a similar enterprise in 1820, and Dr. Colledge of the East India Company opened a dispensary at his own expense in 1837, which lasted for five years and was very successful. Dr. Parker's work began Nov. 4, 1835, and while at first the object of much suspicion on the part of the Chinese, soon attracted wide notice for its wonderful cures in all ranks of society, and elicited many touching expressions of gratitude. This enterprise so favorably begun has been carried on ever since, and was the pat- tern of many others since established. The influence of Dr. Parker's medical work led to the formation in 1838 of the Medical Missionary Society, a pioneer in a field now much more fully explored. Dr. Hobson of the London Society con- ducted a separate hospital in Canton from 1846 to 1856. He was the author of many tracts and of several medical works in Chinese. He was associated with another man of mark, Dr. Wil- liam Lockhart, who had a long and varied ex- perience in southern, central, and northern China, and whose volume called "The Medical Mis- sionary in China" was one of the earliest and is still one of the best presentations of its subject.
The Second Period, 1842 to 1860
The outcome of the struggle with Great Britain was that China was compelled to yield
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everything claimed, and as we have already seen, in addition to Canton, which had been little more than a prison-house for merchants, the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shang- hai were definitely opened, and consuls were appointed to each of them. International re- lations were thus constituted, and with it, as a bitter accompaniment, exterritoriality, — an imperative necessity in the case of an Oriental government like China, but not the less galling to its pride. Now that Great Britain had pre- pared the way, Belgium, France, Holland, Por- tugal, Prussia, Spain, and the United States hastened to send embassies and to make treaties. Hongkong was ceded to the British, and a small and iDarren rock of " rotten granite " was, by the magic touch of good government and commer- cial enterprise, converted into one of the most important ports of the world. There was an enormous expansion of business in e,very direc- tion, yet no one was satisfied, for the British public, at least, had persuaded itself that now that China was "opened," her people would desire Occidental civilization. Thither accord- ingly were sent great and futile shipments of knives, forks, stockings, and pianos ! The Chinese officials had been demonstrated to be but men of straw, and a British consul, Mr. T. T. Meadows, perhaps the most philosophical of the many writers on China, considered that this itself was one of the chief predisposing
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causes of the great T'ai P'ing Rebellion, which for half a generation, like a slow-moving but irresistible lava-flow, devastated more than half the empire.
The effect of the new conditions was as much appreciated by the body of missionaries as by the merchants. When Morrison died in Canton, in 1834, the prospect of the extension of the evangelistic work, as Dr. Williams re- minds us, was nearly as dark as when he landed. Only three assistants had come to his help, so that when the first American missionaries ar- rived, at the expiration of twenty-three years of toil, he was again quite alone. Within the period closing with the treaty of Nanking, about fifty missionaries had been sent from Europe and America, either to China or to the Chinese settlements in Java, Siam, and the Straits; but owing to the fluctuating nature of these immi- grants and to other causes, none of these mis- sions had taken root. They were now almost entirely abandoned for work in China itself. The converts there had been but few, and at the close of the war it is said that they might have all been counted on the fingers of one hand.
Splendid Reinforcements. — Without descend- ing into detail, a few words may suffice to indi- cate the nature of the great forward movement which took place in China after the war. The American Presbyterian mission began to work
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in Canton in 1842, followed two years later by the American Southern Baptist mission. Two German missions, the Rhenish and the Basel, entered the Kuangtung province in 1817. They met with phenomenal difficulties and discour- agements, yet persevered in their work. One mission was largely for the native Cantonese and the other for the Hakkas, a race of former immigrants from central China. It is note- worthy that one of their best men tried for many years to establish himself in the vicinity of Swatow, but failed ; yet that region later became the headquarters of a conspicuously suc- cessful work by the American Baptists, under the lead of Dr. Ashmore (now a veteran of more than fifty years' standing), and by the English Presbyterians, led by Rev. William C. Burns, one of the best-known missionaries of this period by reason of his evangelistic spirit, his extraordinary command of many dialects, his sweet hymns, and his unequalled translation of the " Pilgrim's Progress " into the mandarin col- loquial. He also opened the work of the same society at Amoy, where the London society was represented by the Stronach brothers, who came from Peking and Singapore. They devoted themselves with great ardor to street preach- ing, one of them learning by heart large portions of the Chinese classics, so that when attacked by Chinese scholars they always found more than their match. The work of the American
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Board at this port was subsequently transferred to the American Reformed mission. All three of these missions expanded into large propor- tions, and the entire history of their develop- ment is a study in the wise and efficient union of faith and works. The phenomenal measure of union here attained was wholly due to the missionaries on the field, and not to the societies at home, making another object-lesson in the conduct of missions.
In Foochow the American Board mission and that of the American Methodists were each begun in 1847, followed three years later by the Church Missionary Society of England. Each of these has grown to large results, attained after long seed-sowing and patient, prayerful waiting. In the case of the Church mission it was eleven years before the first converts were gained, and in the others almost as long.
Ningpo was occupied by the American Baptist mission in 1843, the American Presbyterian mis- sion following the next year, and the Church mis- sion in 1848, in each case with expansion in due season similar to that just mentioned. In the rising port of Shanghai the London mission was begun by Dr. Medhurst and Dr. Lockhart pre- viously referred to, followed soon after by Mr. Muirhead, who lived to complete, and more than complete, fifty years of arduous and unusually varied and efficient service. The American Protestant Episcopal Board, under the lead of
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Dr. Boone and a party of nine recruits, followed in 1845 ; the American Southern Baptists, with whom the names of Dr. and Mrs. Yates will al- ways be identified, in 1847 ; and the American Presbyterian mission in 1850, where their evan- gelistic labors have been admirably matched by the establishment and conduct of one of the largest and best mission presses in the world. The American Southern Methodist mission (1848) has also done a great work, especially for education of varied grades.
Many other incipient movements date from this period of preparation. It was a time of restriction, with possibilities of future develop- ments rather than of actual expansion. For- eigners were limited to a thirty-mile radius in thekr excursions from the treaty ports. The occupation of a large part of the interior by the T'ai P'ing rebels made travelling dangerous ; and though many bold and brave missionaries adventured their lives in the camp of the leader, who successfully established himself at Nanking in 1852, it became more and more evident that nothing really reformatory was. to be expected from these " Kings," with their blasphemous assumptions. Fifty years from the beginning of Protestant missions it was estimated by some that the number of converts was not more than one hundred, although others place the figures much higher. Yet important beginnings had everywhere been made. The medical work
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was a great blessing in Canton, in Shanghai, and wherever else it was practicable. The thin end of the missionary educational wedge began to be inserted in the yawning rifts of Chinese ignorance and prejudice, and was driven home with sturdy blows.
Translation of the Scriptures. — Mention has already been made of the significant fact that the very first Protestant missionaries translated the whole Bible into Chinese, an enterprise which, so far as is known, the Roman Catholics with their start of many hundred years never undertook. The revision of the earlier translation was ar- ranged for immediately after the close of the war of 1842, by a general conference at Hong- kong the next year. The committee consisted of Rev. Messrs. Medhurst, J. Stronach, and Milne, from the London society, and Rev. Messrs. Bridgman, Boone, Shuck, Lowrie, and Culbertson, from American societies. The New Testament was finished in 1850, the Old Testa- ment in 1853, and another version in a simpler style in 1862 by Messrs. Bridgman and Culbert- son. In 1865 the New Testament was also translated into the mandarin dialect by Messrs. Blodget, Edkins, Burdon, and Schereschewsky, the latter making the admirable rendering of the Old Testament alone. The difficulties of fixing upon suitable terms for such expressions as faith, atonement, regeneration, sanctification, etc., in a language like the Chinese, was very
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great. The rendering of the word "baptize" proved an obstacle to unity of versions, and singular as it may appear to those unacquainted with the nature of the question, no common term for God could be agreed upon. Even to the present time, all copies of the Scriptures and most other Christian books, are printed in different editions with different terms. While this has been an obvious and much regretted evil, the injury to the mission cause has been far less than might be supposed, since the Chi- nese are familiar with great diversities of ex- pression for the same concept. There is now an increasing tendency to harmony, and within a few decades the controversy will have been forgotten.
Treachery in Treaties. — The last four years of this period were witnesses of another war between Great Britain and China, the occasion- ing cause being a " lorcha " loaded with opium and flying the British flag. But the real diffi- culty was the intolerable assumptions of the Chinese, who had unlearned all the lessons of the previous contest. Treaties were signed in 1858, but the foreign envoys committed the fatal mistake of leaving Tientsin, and China as well, by the end of the year, relieving the emperor from his fear of being captured and carried off, as the governor-general of Kuang- tung had been. The following year the Chin- ese treacherously refused to exchange the
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ratifications of the treaties, and drove back the British. Tliis involved another war, which took pLace in 1860, with the British and French as allies, resulting in the capture of Peking in the month of October, and supplementary treaties signed at Peking.
The Third Period, 1860 to 1895
The close of the second war with Great Britain is one of the turning-points of modern Chinese history. The ignorant and obstinate Manchus and Chinese had been forced to rec- ognize the power of the "barbarians." The important right of residence in Peking was conceded. Many new ports were opened, each a large window for more light to enter the empire. One of the most unique events was the introduction into the treaties of the "toler- ation clause," which in the American version is as follows : " Art. XXIX. The principles of the Christian religion as professed by the Prot- estant and Roman Catholic churches, are rec- ognized as teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them. Hereafter those who quietly profess and teach these doctrines shall not be harassed or persecuted on account of their faith. Any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who according to these tenets peaceably teaches and practices the principles of Christianity, shall in no case be interfered
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with or molested." Much has been written and said in condemnation and in praise of this article, the former on the ground that it was " forcing our religion upon the Chinese," though it cannot justly be so construed. Like exterri- toriality, it was not perhaps quite welcome to the Chinese, but they made in the first instance no objections whatever, or it would not have been included, as the Ministers held no brief for missions. There can be little doubt that the treaty has been most useful to the better interests of all classes of Chinese. That it has been at times abused is likewise true, but in this respect this article is unfortunately not singu- lar. A spurious clause appended by a zealous Father, employed as interpreter, to the Chinese but not to the French version of the French treaty reads thus : " It is in addition per- mitted to French missionaries to rent and to purchase land in all the provinces, and to erect buildings thereon at pleasure." As only the French text is authoritative, this pious fraud was useless. Contrary to the common repre- sentations on the subject, it may be said to have had no relation at all to Protestant missionary residence in the interior.
Evidences of a New Era. — It was in the early part of this period that the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service was instituted, manned by foreigners and furnishing an object-lesson in civil service, and revenues for the empire.
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The Burlingame mission to foreign courts was despatched to enable the Chinese to get their breath before coming into the "sisterhood of nations." A large party of Chinese youth was sent to the United States to be educated, only to be recalled some years later before the fruits were ripe. The Chinese commercial spirit came to self-consciousness in western ways by the organization of the important China Mer- chants' Steam Navigation Company, and in general it was evident that a new era had set in. At the declaration of peace in the autumn of 1860 more than a hundred missionaries were penned up in Shanghai awaiting the second " opening " of China. Rev. Henry Blodget of the American Board was the first Protestant missionary to enter Tientsin immediately fol- lowing the British army, passing on later to Peking. During this period that mission, ex- panding into several stations, began at T'ung Chou the rudiments of what blossomed into a college and theological seminary, together with the usual forms of work, and a printing-press in Peking. Mr. Edkins of Shanghai estab- lished himself at Tientsin, and later at Peking, in each of which cities flourishing missions developed. The hospital work at the former city is associated with the names of Dr. J. K. McKenzie and Dr. Roberts. Dr. Lockhart, as already mentioned, opened a hospital in Peking, followed by Dr. Dudgeon and many others.
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Mr. Muirhead of Shanghai was able to visit Hankow, seven hundred miles up the Yang^-tse River, at an early period after the treaty of 1858, and in 1861 Mr. Griffith John went to occupy what Secretary Mullens thought " the finest mis- sionary centre in the world." From this strategic point the work of the London and other societies has spread all over that part of the empire, into remote Ssuch'uan, and more lately into the formerly sealed province of Hunan.
The American Presbyterian mission ex- panded from Shanghai into the great and ancient cities of Hangchow, Soochow, and Nan- king, and later to Peking, where its beginnings are linked with the name of Dr. W. A. P. Martin, subsequently president of the T'ung Wen Kuan, and of the Imperial University, au- thor of many important works in Chinese. In Shantung the same mission, beginning at Che- fop and Teng Chou Fu, worked westward to many cities, developing into two different mis- sions. The name of Dr. Nevius will always be associated with his great work in eastern Shan- tung. A fine college grew up under the guid. ing hands of Dr. C. W. Mateer and others, the usefulness of which is but begun.
The Church mission opened a station in Peking, which was later turned over to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (the Anglican mission), which now has two bishops over its flocks in Chihli and Shantung.
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The American Methodist mission, whose occupation of Foochow has been mentioned, began work in central China in 1867, and in Peking two years later, reaching out for vast distances in every direction. Their modest Boys' Boarding School, begun in 1878, devel- oped ten years later into what became the Peking University, with a large constituency. An important mission of this society in the far province of Ssuch'uan was begun in 1881, followed for a time by violence and serious trouble.
The China Inland Mission. — Even to sketch in the baldest outline the trickling of these streams which were to convey the water of life to widely separated parts of China would occupy many pages, and would, after all, convey but a slight impression of the real work of more than fifty different missionary societies which grad- ually overspread the land. To one of these, however, it is necessary to devote a little space on account of its unique origin, methods, and results. The China Inland Mission was begun in 1865 by Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, a physician who went to China under the Chinese Evan- gelization Society in 1853. It has always been distinctively a "faith mission," with no guaranteed salary for its workers, no personal solicitation of funds being authorized, "pan- denominational," and in its fuller development international. Its efforts were systematically
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directed, not merely to working in China but for the whole of the empire, especially the unoccupied provinces, then very numerous. Its plan was to begin at the capital of each prov- ince, although this would generally be the most difficult city to enter, taking the prefectural cities later, and the -smaller ones last. Thus centres would be taken and held, through which the whole province might be influenced. The first stages were largely preliminary, especially itinerating, which was carried on sometimes upon a gigantic scale ; as, for example, one of Mr. Stevenson's journeys from Burmah to Yun- nan, Ssuch'uan, and thence to Shanghai, and back to Burmah, making in 240 days a total of about 7700 miles.
One of the marked features of the growth of the mission has been the arrival of large rein- forcements at one time in answer to definite prayer. In 1881 seventy-seven members of the mission signed an appeal for seventy additional workers, and in the three following years sev- enty-six recruits reached the field. In Novem- ber, 1886, a hundred new workers were asked for, and the whole number was sent out during the following year. Among the forty acces- sions in 1885 were the well-known " Cambridge band," whose arrival created a profound impres- sion both at home and abroad. The prayers for funds were answered in like manner, so that they have substantially kept pace with the
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expanding area of labor. A considerable num- ber of societies, especially from Scandinavian countries, have sent out workers as "associates" of the Inland Mission. At the end of 1898, two years before the close of the period under consideration, this mission had 583 workers dis- persed through all the provinces except Kuang- tung and Fukien, with 131 stations, and more than as many churches, containing 4300 mem- bers.
The policy of adopting large cities as cen- tres of effort has been generally followed all over China. The United Presbyterian church has a large and rapidly growing work in Manchuria, begun in this way, but developed according to providential leadings, until at the close of this period it had literally almost covered the whole land with its influence. On the other hand, three missions in North China, the London Society in Chihli, the English Methodist, and the American Board in Shan- tung, have each one station in a country village, from which the work expands as elsewhere, without the advantage of a large urban con- stituency, and free also from its drawbacks.
Modus of Mission Work
Amid wide diversities of conditions the pro- cesses by which the gospel is introduced in a new mission station bear a general family like- ness, and may be readily outlined. The first
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requisite is a home for the missionary, and in securing this infinite patience and great tact are often indispensable, especially in the early stages of the work. In shrewdness at bargain- ing the Chinese yield nothing to either Jew or Gentile ; and the moment that a foreign " bar- barian " wishes a site it rapidly increases in value. The small holdings of Chinese property, the large families, indefinite subdivisions of land and dwellings, the tyranny of the aged, as well as of those belonging to the literary class, the terrorism of professional bullies, the antip- athy to foreigners on the part of neighbors and of the " gentry," the incapacity, obstinacy, ignorance, cunning, deceit, and open hostility of the local and higher officials, make this a task which not infrequently extends over sev- eral years. Only the most resolute purpose, backed by illimitable faith in his mission of enlightenment to those refusing to be enlight- ened, prevents discouragement and failure. Not all beginnings have been of this descrip- tion, but they are frequent and are always to be expected, especially in the larger cities and in provincial capitals. The gradual thawing of the icebergs of prejudice may generally be counted upon, but it is a slow process. The deeds of a moderate-sized mission compound would sometimes make a carpet for a large room, and the separate sheets resemble crazy patchwork in their number, each one perhaps
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the issue of a hotly contested and long-con- tinued battle. In countless instances, to other forms of opposition has been added that of mob violence, which is readily excited by subter- ranean means through the influence of the officials or the literary class. The wildest stories are in circulation about the extraction of the eyes and hearts of children for use in " making silver," until the whole region is wild with passion. It was this form of libel which in the first part of this period produced the terrible Tientsin massacre (June, 1870) in which twenty foreigners lost their lives, in- cluding a French consul.
The Second Step. — As soon as a base of operations is secured, the next step is usually the opening of a street chapel, to which any and all are cordially invited. At first the crowd gathers automatically, but in case of marked opposition the place is in a manner boycotted, and those seen to go there may suf- fer for it. Roughs and rowdies may get up disturbances, and every day may be a crisis. The neighbors perhaps will not go into the chapel at all, and scholars are very shy of it. Many coolies listen to the reiteration of Chris- tian truth and daily remark, " This doctrine is all right," with not the smallest perception of its drift. Scholars may condescend in private conversation to announce the view that " this doctrine is practically the same as ours," only
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it is the Occidental version, whereas Confucian- ism is the form adapted for China. The late Li Hung Chang, in addressing a large company of friends of missions in New York, remarked that in his opinion Christianity and Confu- cianism were substantially the same, and this friendly and superficial notion is very prevalent. The Abbe Hue, in one of his volumes on " Chris- tianity in China," shows how for centuries the course of thought has run in fixed grooves. " Then, as now, the mandarins listened to dis- courses on God, the soul, and salvation, from mere curiosity, or as they say themselves, 'to amuse their hearts a little.' They were often even courteous enough to declare the doctrines perfect and unanswerable, but on going away resumed their habitual indifference, and became just as Chinese as ever."
When audiences fail, it is not difficult to draw them in by singing. It is often possible to secure a large attendance after the shops close for the evening. One day a countryman drifts into the chapel who has come to town to sell his watermelons. He squanders three cash on a catechism which he cannot read, and disap- pears. The next year he reappears with two other men, one of whom is a scholar, and the remote village in which he lives is suggested as a good place in which to begin interior work. A helper being sent to it is, however, unable to find the place at all. " What does this fellow
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want of that village?" is the thought of every one of whom inquiry is made. When at last the village is found, a hopeful interest seems to be aroused, which goes on for some months. It then turns out that the scholar is an opium taker, and wishes to rent his premises for "a chapel" to the foreigner. It is a well-tried maxim that a missionary dates his real troubles from the time of the baptism of his first con- vert. Not all openings, however, are disap- pointing. Sooner or later there is a patch of peculiarly fertile " good ground " which brings forth thirty-fold, and these form spots of light in the midst of a gross darkness that may be felt.
The Peripatetic Preacher. — Itinerating con- stitutes an important part of missionary work, particularly in the earlier stages. The mere sight of a foreigner is in itself an illumination to the rustic in the interior. Markets and fairs are held everywhere, often on fixed days of the moon, and at such times there is no difficulty in drawing a large audience. Book sales will help to confer an air of respectability to street preaching, for the Chinese have a profound def- erence for literature. Even a turbulent crowd will sober down when some one calls out, " See, he is going to sell books now ! " As a rule only a small percentage of the men can read, and it is therefore indispensable to furnish tracts and leaflets in a style so simple as to be readily
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understood of the people. The population is so dense, and the indifference of most of them to new ideas so great, that only when a district has been continuously visited for a long series of years can it be said in any real sense to have heard the gospel. In the accomplishment of this work colporteurs are indispensable, and any number of the right men could be usefully employed. The Chinese Christians of Canton organized many years since a " Book Lending Society," which is a unique and useful way of bringing Christian literature to the attention of local scholars, by loaning to them books to be returned later in good condition, and perhaps exchanged for others. The village school- master and the literary graduate thus reached exert an influence greater than that of scores of other men. Such devices ought to be in use all over China.
Churches in Embryo. — As soon as the station is really in working order, there is almost sure to be opened a little day-school for boys. At first these are all of necessity children of non- Christian parents, and some inducements may be offered to them to attend. But ere long the constituency alters, and the bud of a Christian school is developed. The parents become inter- ested, and the lads themselves may be the means of doing great things for the Master. There is no room for disappointment if the percentage of such success is not large, when one recollects
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how much fruit may depend from one little tree long cultivated. The handful of pupils taught by Dr. S. R. Brown in Amoy had among them three who exerted a mighty power for good in the future history of China, though nothing seemed less likely at the time. As there begin to be converts, the work of the missionary is imperceptibly altered. While still endeavor- ing to reach outsiders, he feels a yet stronger pressure to teach those who are the first-fruits of the new kingdom. This is done in many ways, especially by station classes for men, held at seasons and places most convenient for them, in wliich the greatest contrasts of learning and ignorance are united, but where there is room for every talent which the teacher possesses. These are rudimentary theological seminaries, and out of them have come some of the best workers ever seen in China. At first, by reason of the poverty of the people, it may be neces- sary to give assistance to these adult pupils in food or fuel, but later, as a better comprehension of the value of the instruction prevails, this is no longer the case. By this time embryonic churches, in the shape of small groups of twos and threes in places near and far, begin to appear, and the planting and training of these bands of disciples require all the time, strength, and wisdom available, and not infrequently much more. To this work there is no assign- able limit. It is in this that the greatest trials
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and the greatest awards are alike met. As the station grows older and is perhaps better equipped, a boarding-school is added, in which the instruction of lads from the day-school is carried further, perhaps with a view to contin- uation in a college elsewhere.
The Doctor and the Dispensary. — In a well- equipped station there is likely to be a physician who opens a dispensary and a hospital, the twin keys which unlock many Chinese hearts closely sealed against all other influences. It is when sick, weak, and helpless, that the love and com- fort of the gospel appeal most strongly to all. Human nature is everywhere the same, and that practical philanthropy which does not de- spise nor refuse toilsome, disagreeable, and even loathsome tasks, if only good may result, is even to the most bigoted Chinese its own self- evidence of a good-will to man never before seen. Chinese medical science is little better than a parody on what it professes. Surgery is practically unknown. Chinese medicines are nauseous, expensive, and for the most part inert. Superstition vitiates every kind of treat- ment. Nursing is " a lost art " never discovered. Foods for the sick are everything which they should not be, and dieting is both inconceivable and impossible. Antiseptics are as unknown as the X rays, and in the absence of sanitation, ventilation, proper clothing, isolation, and gen- eral common sense, nothing but a strong con-
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stitution and the mercy of God prevent all patients from dying daily of unconscious but age-long violation of all the laws of nature. One's faith in the germ theory of disease is much shaken by the unassailable fact that the Chinese race still survives.
Preaching to dispensary patients, and espe- cially faithful work among regular occupants of the hospital, is probably the most immediately rewarding missionary effort in China. If the hospital and dispensary staff should be adequate, great good may be done by combined medical and evangelistic tours, referring all graver cases to the central station for treatment. A list of the diseases treated in a well-established medi- cal work reads like the table of contents of a compendious treatise on the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Surgery. Great numbers of frightful cases present themselves which in an Occidental land would never be seen at all, because they would have been treated in their earlier stages. The training of medical students is an important part of the missionary physi- cian's work. It is a task beset with difficulties, but has great rewards.
Special efforts are often made for opium smokers, especially in the opium-cursed province of Shansi, where wonderful results have been sometimes obtained. Deacon Liu, the stalwart Christian who refused to fly from the Boxers, had at one time been a phenomenally heavy
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smoker, taking more than an ounce of opium each day. Here and elsewhere the outcome of " opium refuges " has been mixed, and not in- frequently highly disappointing. It has been found that opium pills compounded with mor- phia may induce a worse habit than the one given up. Or, in Chinese aphoristic phrase, "trying to cure consumption, the patient gets asthma also." Work for the blind is carried on to some extent by Mr, Murray in Peking, in the use of the Braille system of raised dots to rep- resent Chinese sounds, and with wonderful re- sults ; but the plan has not yet been widely introduced. Something has been done in the way of Protestant orphanages, and a great deal by the indefatigable Roman Catholics. Mrs. Mills of Chefoo, formerly of the American Presbyterian mission, is a pioneer in efforts for the very numerous deaf and dumb. A refuge for the insane was founded by Dr. J. G. Kerr in 1898 at Canton, and each of these enterprises has a vast field among the hopelessly afflicted in this great empire. Dr. Kerr died in 1901, having been at the head of one of the largest hospitals for more than forty years. He trained a hundred qualified Chinese physicians and published many well-known medical works. A beginning has likewise been made in the special treatment of lepers, particularly by Mr. and Mrs. Brewster in the Fukien prov- ince, where the number of those suffering
M
162 HEX CHRISTUS
from this terrible malady is much greater than elsewhere.
There is no reason why self-supporting Chris- tian physicians, men and women, should not feel a call to practise their divine art in China, in cooperation v/ith any other work which they might select, with a reasonable certainty that great good in new ways, as well as in those already opened, will assuredly result.
SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat, He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment
seat. O be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on !
— Julia Ward Howe.
The Yale Law School student graduating with the best record (1903) was Chung Hui Wang, a graduate of Tientsin University.
Morrison's translation of the New Testament is one of the noblest services ever rendered by any human hand to tlie cause of religion. . . . Seven years had elapsed be- fore he brought a convert to the font ; but through the means of his dictionary it is impossible to estimate to how many souls the doctrines of redeniption have been and will be conveyed. — Noi-th American Review.
What has China to show for her far-famed literary ex- aminations? Only a graduate wearing a yellow crystal or ruby button — and to this, sometimes, is added a
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 163
peacock's feather. This last is a fit emblem of his great- ness ; for just as surely as the glory of the peacock falls to the ground at the first adverse wind, this man falls from his pedestal whenever he comes in contact with an all-round educated man from the Occident.
— Haknah C. Woodhull.
During my twenty years' stay in China I always con- gratulated myself on the fact that the missionaries were there . . . The good done by them in the way of edu- cation, of medical relief, and of other charities cannot be overestimated.
— Hon. G. F. Seward, fonner U. S. Minister.
I made a study of missionary work in China. I took a man-of-war and visited almost every open port in the empire. At each of these places I visited and inspected every missionary station. At the schools the scholars were arrayed before me and examined. I went through the missionary hospitals. I attended synods and church services. I saw the missionaries, ladies and gentlemen, in their homes. I unqualifiedly, and in the strongest lan- guage that tongue can utter, give to these men and women who are living and dying in China and in the far East my full and unadulterated commendation. In China the missionaries are the leaders in every charitable work. They give to the natives largely out of their scanty earn- ings, and they honestly administer the alms of others. When famine arrives — and it comes every year — or the rivers inundate the soil with never-ceasing frequency, the missionary is the first and last to give his time and labor to alleviate suffering. They are the writers of books for the Chinese. They are the interpreters for them and the legations. The first graduates of the finest western colleges supply and practice surgery, — an un- known art among the Chinese.
— Charles Denby, former U. S. Minister.
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The Open Door
The Open Door for China !
Doors that are closed shut in Squalor and superstition
And the old, old shapes of sin ; The sin of the Primal Peoples,
Cunning and fierce and fell. With foul untruth and lack of ruth,
And hate as deep as hell.
The Open Door for China !
And hail to the coming light I For blinded eyes and stifled cries
Are there in her awful night. The light of the White Man's Gospel —
The light of the White Man's Law — Woman and slave to lift and save
From the " ancient dragon's " maw.
Blood of the pale young martyrs,
New-slain for the White Man's creed — Of the mighty tree that is yet to be
It waters the fertile seed. Their happy eyes shall see it
From the Place of the Golden Floor ; They failed — they died ! Their hands set wide
The leaves of the " Open Door " !
— Blanche M. Channing, in the Boston Journal.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. The Door Opened to the Gospel. II. The White Man's Burden in China.
III. The Nestorian Tablet.
IV. Fibre of Faith among the Early Converts. V. Native Preachers and Teachers.
VI. The Two Roberts — Morrison and Milne.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 166
VII. Williams, The Pioneer Printer. VIII. Peter Parker and Medical Missions. IX. Power of Christian Literature in the Flowery
Kingdom. X. The China Inland " Faith " Mission. XI. The Tragedy at Tientsin in 1870 and Tientsin
To-day. XII. Sir Robert Hart and Our Debt to Christian Diplomats.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
General References as Before
Beresford's " The Break-up of China." II, XII. Bishop's " The Yangtze Valley and Beyond." I, U, XII. Bryson's "John Kenneth Mackenzie." VIII. Creegan's " Great Missionaries of the Church." I. "Crisis in China" (reprint of articles in North American
Review). II, XII. Curzon's " Problems of the Far East." II, XII. Dukes's " Everyday Life in China." V. Foster's " Christian Progress in China." I, IV, V, IX. Gibson's " Missionary Problems and Methods." I, IV, V. Graves's " Forty Years in China." II, VIII, IX, XII. Gutztaff's " Chinese History." I, II, III. Henry's " The Cross and the Dragon." IV. Hue's "Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China." HI,
IV, V. Johnston's " China and Formosa." V, VIII. Johnston's " China and Its Future." XII. Leonard's " A Hundred Years of Missions." I, IV, V. Moule's " New China and Old." Ill, VIII. Muirhead's " China and the Gospel." IX. Nevius's " China and the Chinese." I, HI, IV, V, IX. Robson's " Griffith John." V. Speer's " The Oldest and Newest Empire." I, II.
166 REX CHRISTUS
Speer's " Missions and Politics iu Asia." I, IT, IX. Taylor's "Days of Blessing in Inland China." II, X. Wilson's " China." IX, XL
Articles on China in Periodicals : —
Contemporary, Vol. 36, " The Future of China." XII. Nineteenth Century, Vol. 43, "The Future of Manchu- ria." II. North American, Vol. 153, "New Life in China." II.
CHAPTER V
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. PART II
On the Threshold of the Twentieth Century
Woman's Work. ^ — One can have no idea of the regenerative forces at work in China without some knowledge of woman's work in the Flowery Kingdom. It is desirable, therefore, at this point to summarize those forms of activity which be- long distinctively to woman's realm. From the beginning, as wives of missionaries, women have had a noble share in the labors of their husbands, but it is in their organized capacity that we see the largest results. Hon. Chester Holcombe, secretary of the legation, and for some years acting minister of the United States, says: "If the missionaries in that vast empire had accom- plished nothing more during the half century than to furnish object-lessons of the true posi- tion of women, and the highest type of Christian homes, that result alone would justify their presence in China, and the money invested in the enterprise." But in addition to this general service, as exponents of a new type of woman- hood, there are certain concrete achievements
1 At Dr. Smith's request this part of Chapter V was written by Miss Dyer.
167
168 REX CHRISTUS
which stand forth as conspicuous examples of what women alone could do there for their own sex. Foremost among these is —
The Educational Work. — Like all far-reach- ing plans for the uplifting of the human race, the beginnings were humble. The genesis of schools and colleges for woman throughout the East may be traced to a little gathering of ladies in a London drawing-room in the summer of 1834. Rev. David Abeel had just returned from China to recruit his broken health. Bur- dened with a sense of the misery and degrada- tion which he had seen among the women, and which no man could relieve, he laid their case before these ladies. The result was the forma- tion of the Society for Promoting Female Edu- cation in the East. This was the first attempt to reach women in non-Christian lands in the only way they could be reached — through their own sex. A representative of the society was sent to Singapore to open a school for Chinese girls, the foregleam of a light now shining brightly in many educational centres. Little did that small group of praying women, who assembled at Mr. Abeel's appeal, realize that before the century closed its rays would have penetrated into dark corners throughout the whole world.
Nearly a generation passed, however, before this pioneer society was followed by a second, this time in America. The Woman's Union
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 169
Missionary Society, formed in New York in 1861, marks an era of rapid expansion. No less than thirty-three societies came into existence within twenty-one years in the United States alone. The Congregationalists of Boston led off in 1868 with the Woman's Board of Mis- sions. The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, also societies in Canada, fol- lowed in quick succession.
It is profoundly significant that this splendid new impulse for foreign missions synchronizes almost perfectly with the movement for the higher education of women, and the establish- ment of colleges for them both in England and the United States. The enlargement of mind and soul, the broader horizon of thought, the development of administrative powers engen- dered by greater educational privileges needed to be directed into channels of worthy effort. Coincident with this opening of doors of privi- lege in Christian lands came the opening of doors of opportunity in heathendom. Seldom has there been a more marked example of the way in which the field and the workers are divinely fitted for each other.
Day and Boarding Schools. — Prior to the period of organization a few schools for girls had been established in China. One of the oldest, which may be taken as a type of all, was founded by Mrs. C. C. Baldwin of the Ameri- can Board in Foochow nearly fifty years ago.
170 BEX CHEISTUS
/mother was started by the Woolston sisters, Sarah and Beulah, under the auspices of Meth- odist women in Baltimore. These and other early plants were transferred eventually to the fostering care of the Woman's Boards of dif- ferent denominations. Bitter opposition was encountered at first. The Chinese claim that women have neither minds nor souls, why should they be taught to read? If parents did not want their girl children, why should they commit them to foreigners? There were other ways to dispose of the encumbrances. They could put them out of existence, or could give them to some one who wanted to bring up a wife for his son. Better still, they might sell them for a small sum of money. This last consideration furnished the solution to the problem. For money the missionaries were allowed the privilege of feeding, clothing, and educating the girls, and also deciding to whom they should be betrothed. This was called " buying the right of betrothal," and it marked an important stage of progress, as it made it pos- sible to marry the girls to Christian young men. The custom is almost unnecessary nowadays, and is always discouraged if any other way can be found to release the girls.
After the period of organization set in, the women of England and America took up the extension of these schools in good earnest, and from 1870 till the close of the century they
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 171
multiplied rapidly. Through them access was gained to the homes, thus giving an opportu- nity to reach the hearts of the poor, unloved, sorrowinsr veomen. Yet the obstacles to their establishment even now are many and arise from a variety of sources — the distance is too great, and the girls must not be seen on the street even if the mother is willing. The father or a big brother vetoes the plan, or, if he be over-per- suaded, uncles, aunts, and grandmothers hover in the not distant offing with their scoffs and biting sarcasms. Mrs. A. H. Smith said at the last Shanghai Conference : " As we hold out the bright and cheerful lamp of education to our Chinese sisters, such a warning cry of opposition goes up all around that one might suppose we had offered a lighted bomb ! " The education of girls is in no way opposed to the theories of the Chinese, but only to their practice. In this lies the hope of a great intellectual awakening for their women. Experience shows that Chinese girls have as good minds as the boys, but their disabilities are naturally much greater.
The boarding-schools, now counted by scores, bring teacher and pupil into still closer relations than the day-schools, and increase the power of personal influence. In them, also, it was nec- essary at first to provide almost everything for the pupils ; but by degrees more and more re- sponsibilit}^ in this matter, as well as in regard to betrothals, is laid upon the parents. This
172 BEX CHRISTUS
enhances in their eyes the value of an education for their daughters. What is learned from books constitutes but a small part of their training. One of the most important functions is to fit them to become wives of the Chris- tian young men who are to be at the head of the church in China, and noble mothers for a new and better generation yet to come. The course of study is elementary, but the schools are graded, so that classes can be graduated, and they are forerunners of colleges and higher institutions of learning.
Influence on the Community. — As teachers, Bible readers, physicians, nurses, wives of preachers, and mothers in their own homes, the girls from these schools are already shap- ing public sentiment in this vast empire. At the annual conference the native women make reports of their evangelistic tours and other forms of service. The consciousness that such reports are expected of them awakens a sense of responsibility and a laudable ambition. One of the most notable gatherings of the nineteenth century was a women's conference at Shanghai in November, 1900, at which English-speaking ladies, foreign and Chinese, compared notes concerning the home life of Chinese women. Lady Blake, wife of the governor of Hong- kong, presided, and among the speakers was Dr. Ida Kahn, one of the few Chinese gradu- ates from a medical school in the United States.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 173
Her address on Girl Slavery was a finished, as well as a forcible, production. The intelli- gent grasp of all the topics by the native women spoke volumes for their missionary training.
A striking illustration of their influence in creating a right public sentiment appeared recently in Hangchow, where the wives of sev- eral mandarins met in an ancestral hall, and formed themselves into an anti-footbinding 'society. Eighty women were present, fifty of whom signed a pledge to unbind their own feet and never to bind their daughters' feet. This meeting was most remarkable in that it was called by non-Christian women, and entirely conducted by them. Before its close they de- cided to go to work at once to raise money among themselves to open a girls' school. The initial public protest against the cruel custom had been made years before by one brave Ameri- can girl at the head of a school in Peking. " I cannot have children in my school with bound feet," she said. The same attitude was taken by missionaries of different denominations, who had been constantly working to abolish the evil. This attracted attention, and brought forth re- monstrance, but a sentiment against the cus- tom was awakened and mass meetings were held to keep it alive. But who would have predicted that any such spontaneous action by Chinese women themselves, and not Christians,
174 BEX CHBISTUS
would ever have taken place ? The same power of public sentiment led twentj^-one families of high social position in Foochow to obtain im- perial sanction to unbind their women's feet. About three years ago the empress dowager issued an edict against the custom, which caused much rejoicing in America. But despite her command the expectations of a large mar- ket for American shoes in China, to cover liber- ated feet, have not been realized.
A Birthday Gift to the Empress Dowager. — Another significant incident took place during the war with Japan. " It Avas a happy sugges- tion," says Dr. Smith, "at this time of storm and stress that women of the Protestant churches should present to the empress dowager, on the completion of her sixtieth year (Nov. 7, 1894), a special edition of the New Testament, in large type, with gold border and solid silver covers embossed with bamboo designs. The 10,900 contributors represented twenty-nine missions. The casket was carried to the Tsung Li Yamen by the British and American Ministers, and the following day it was sent by the Yamen to her Majesty, and subsequently acknowledged by return gifts to twenty-two lady missionaries who had been prominent in the movement. The greatest curiosity was excited by this vol- ume. The emperor, hearing of it, sent eunuchs to the depository of the American Bible Society to procure copies of the Bible for himself, and
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 175
it was known that he read it and that he learned to pray. What influence these incidents may have exerted it is impossible to say."
Kindergartens. — In 1894 the first kinder- gartens were opened, but less than a dozen are to be- found in all China. Yet children mature so much earlier in the East than in the West that there is far greater need of this class of schools in the Orient than in lands where evil influences are neutralized by Christian homes. If a Froebel instead of a Confucius had laid the foundations of China's educational system, what a different nation she would be to-day !
The notion that the Chinese do not care for their children is false, though the horrible facts of infanticide and girl slavery would seem to warrant such a belief. It is true, also, that they are callous toward the dead because they know nothing of a future life. This leads a father, when his child dies, to say he has " thrown it away." But parental love is as strong in the human heart in China as elsewhere. Does a mother lack affection who says of her baby, " He is so sweet that he makes you love him till it kills you " ? Probably no country in the world has more travelling shows specially pre- pared for the entertainment of children. The fact that an army of men find it possible to sup- port themselves by selling toys and sweets is proof that the Chinese are fond of children and indulgent to them.
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Among their games is the counterpart of our familiar Punch and Judy show. Says Dr. Headland of the Peking University, " Those who hold that the Chinese do not love their children have never consulted their nursery lore." No literature, not even their sacred books, is so generally known as the rhymes which corre- spond to the English Mother Goose ; but many, unfortunately, are grossly impure. No mother in a Christian land would allow her children to read them. He tells us that two out of the eighteen provinces are singularly rich in these juvenile jingles. No fewer than five versions may be found of " This little pig went to market," showing that baby fingers and toes furnish the same entertainment in the Orient as in the Occident. The rhyme of the Little Mouse is as popular all over North China as Jack and Jill to an English-speaking child. It begins: —
" He climbed up the candlestick, The little mousey brown, To steal and eat tallow, Aiid he couldn't get down. He called for his grandma But his grandma was in town, So he doubled up into a wheel And rolled himself down."
On account of their multitude of toys, their fondness for games and their innate ingenuity, Chinese children are peculiarly receptive to kin- dergarten teaching.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 177
Bible Women and Other Workers. — Next to the teacher, perhaps the Bible woman is the strong- est personal force on missionary ground. She is an exponent of the " new " womanhood, and the preparation for her many and varied duties is a delicate and difficult task. The Oriental sense of propriety demands that she shall be middle-aged. There is no branch of the evan- gelistic work more important than the tours of these native Christian women. There are few homes to which they are not welcome. Every- where they are listened to with respect. They show wonderful tact in adapting themselves to circumstances and in overcoming the prejudices of the people. They visit the afflicted, pray with the dying, minister to the sick and desti- tute, giving freely of their own small allowances to help those in distress. Occasionally one will supply the pulpit till a pastor can be found to take charge. In the conduct of the affairs of the native churches everything depends upon the character and quality of those who may be raised up as assistants from among their own people. It is from this point of view that the supreme importance of adequate and thorough Christian training for all classes of women is deeply felt, and training-schools for Bible women have come to be recognized as a necessity. More than twenty have been established since 1874, when the first one was opened by the Baptists at Swatow. A student from a single
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school of this character last year reported 4367 attendants at her meetings during a tour of less than six months. But the whole number of persons reached by this form of service ex- ceeds computation, and their influence for good no man can measure.
It is not only to the poor and humble that they carry the message of salvation. One of the Bible women, Mrs. Chao, received a sum- mons lately to visit a princess, whose name for obvious reasons is withheld. As Mrs. Chao un- folded to her the precious truths concerning the true God, the princess was much affected, and falling upon her knees cried out ; " I, the great Princess Imperial of the first rank, who have never knelt to any one but my Empress, I kneel before you, and entreat you to tell me, are you the true God ? "
The gathering of Chinese women for instruc- tion in station classes is another useful form of Christian activity. Brought together for six weeks or two months during the least busy time of the year, and put under regular instruction, away from the endless interruptions of their own homes, they have a chance to see more clearly the full meaning of Christianity, as ex- emplified in the lives of their teachers. At the end of the term they return home benefited themselves and ready to help others.
Mothers' meetings play an important part in the education of Chinese women. These are
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held in the homes of the missionaries, with surroundings as bright as possible, and often attract timid women of the better classes. See- ing a foreign baby bathed is a great delight and an excellent object-lesson. At the close, tea and light refreshments are served. Though first drawn by " cake and curiosity," they learn to love these gatherings, from which they carry away beautiful truths concerning motherhood, pre-natal as well as its later phases. They go back to their own dwellings, dark with igno- rance and superstition, with the light of new ideas in their eyes and the stirring of new long- ings in their hearts.
Such are some of the " by-products " of mis- sionary effort, and they are often quite as pre- cious as the ore mined by direct labor.
Medical Work
In order to appreciate fully what women are doing in China in their medical capacity, one must have a clear conception of what a Chinese home is like. Into its seclusion no foreign male physician may penetrate, but the woman doctor has access everywhere, from the i/amen, or government house, to the most abject mat hovel. She sees the boy-baby idol dressed and cared for as though a real baby ; the paper idols in their straw shrines in the homes of the poor and the bronze idols in those of the rich; the mystic characters on slips of red paper on the walls
180 BEX CHBISTU8
with sticks of incense burning before them; the charm worn round the neck to ward off devils ; the family shrine with its ancestral tab- lets, costly vases and incense burners. To her " comes the little slave girl almost murdered, the childless wife whose husband is about to discard her, the thirteen-year old daughter-in-law whose mother-in-law has beaten her eye out, and the child whose poor little crushed feet, inflamed and suppurating with decaying bones, appeal to her from the cruel bandages." It was being an eye-witness to conditions such as these which converted Isabella Bird Bishop from in- difference to foreign missions into an ardent be- liever in their saving power, and led her to build five hospitals and an orphanage in the East.
To the Methodist church belongs the honor of sending out the first medical missionary woman in the person of Dr. Combs of Philadel- phia, who reached Peking in the fall of 1873. With her was associated Dr. Howard (now Mrs. Dr. King) a graduate of Ann Arbor. She was summoned to Tientsin to attend the wife of the prime minister Li Hung Chang, and later to minister to his mother, an aged woman who left a bequest of $1000 for Dr. Howard's work, the first bequest of a Chinese woman to Christian benevolence. Mrs. Wu, the wife of a former Minister to the United States was also a patient. Thus access was gained to households of rank, and this proved a turning-point in the history
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 181
of medical work in Tientsin. There, and in other great cities — Peking, Shanghai, Canton, Foochow, and elsewhere — the women's hospi- tals and dispensaries are power houses from which radiate immeasurable forces for good.
Healing is only a small part of the physician's work. Systematic preaching and teaching in the waiting-rooms, and especially in the hospital wards, are perhaps universally practised. When patients have most time on their hands, and when their hearts are peculiarly opened, Chris- tian teaching readily finds entrance. The same persons constantly return, bringing their relatives and friends, and thus the circles of influence perpetually widen. In the poor man's home, where the newly born girl baby is not wanted, the woman physician does the work of an evan- gelist by telling of a Heavenly Father's love for even this tiny babe. To the crowd on the street, where a woman has taken poison and thrown herself on the doorstep of her adversary to die, she tells the story of redeeming love. Many a sufferer turns to kiss the shadow of these Santa Filomenas as it falls upon the wall in hospital or home. In China, too,
" A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood."
The rapid expansion of medical work during the last two decades forms one of the most
182 REX CHRIST us
encouraging records in the annals of foreign mis- sionary effort. Hospitals and dispensaries are now regarded as indispensable agencies in every field. Some, like the Isabella Fisher Hospital in Tientsin, were endowed by a single person. At Shanghai the land, building, furnishing, in- struments, and the salaries of a physician and nurse for some years, were provided for by the munificence of Mrs. Margaret Williamson of New York, for whom the hospital is named. Last year 36,643 patients were treated at the dispensary, and 538 were admitted to the wards, of which 90 were maternity cases. The Pres- byterians alone have seven hospitals for women in China. Four are brand new, three taking the place of those recently destroyed by Boxers. A few Chinese women have received medical training in the United States. One of the first, Miss Hii King Eng of Foochow, the daughter of a native clergyman, studied at the Woman's College in Philadelphia and is now at the head of the Woolston Memorial Hospital. She came to this country in 1884 and returned fully equipped in 1895. Some idea of the extent of her practice may be gained from the fact that she treated over 15,000 patients last year. An- other one was Mary Stone, the first girl brought up by her own parents in all central and western China with unbound feet. Her father and mother were among the first Christian con- verts. She was accompanied by Ida Kahn,
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who began her life in a heathen home. Both graduated from Ann Arbor and are now suc- cessful practitioners together in a large hospi- tal in Kiukiang. These are some of the results seen in the second generation of Chris- tian families.
A small beginning has been made in behalf of special classes of suffering humanity, such as lepers, but the defectives are scarcely touched as yet. The first school for blind girls was opened in 1890, when Dr. Mary Niles of Canton was the means of saving the life of one of the viceroy's wives. In gratitude the man asked if there was anything he could do to assist in her work. She replied that she wanted money to start a home for blind girls in the city, and he gave her $1000. The initial step has been taken in rescue work in Shanghai by opening a Door of Hope, a branch of the Florence Crittendon JNIission in New York.
The First Medical College for Women. — The crowning achievement of all these years of labor is the erection at Canton, one of the most populous cities in the empire, of the Women's Medical College, the first institution of its kind in China. It is an interesting fact that Protestant work began in this busy metropolis, where Dr. J. G. Kerr, of the American Presby- terian mission, gave nearly fifty fruitful years to medical service. The exercises in connection with the opening of the college, Dec. 17, 1902,
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were worthy of so remarkable an event. An audience of seven hundred persons assembled within the building, and Chinese officials from the viceroy down were present either personally or by deputy. A guard of five hundred soldiers lined the streets in the neighborhood to do honor to the occasion. The college, the gift of one generous man, is splendidly located, and is the property of the American Presbyterian Mission. The wealthiest and best educated Chinese have shown a marked interest in the enterprise, which is due largely to the untiring efforts of Dr. Mary H. Fulton, aided by her faithful coadjutor, Dr. Mary Niles. They and their associates have an extensive practice among all classes, high as well as low. Thou- sands of women have been relieved of nameless sufferings through their ministrations. The noble pioneer work of Dr. Kerr and others paved the way for Dr. Fulton to realize the dream which she had cherished during her eigh- teen years of missionary life. The preceding June she had opened a new hospital for women. On the day when the college was dedicated the Chinese officials were loud in their praise, and astonished that one woman could accomplish so much. The United States consul, who made the formal address, said, " In raising the women of China to such a noble and unselfish standard. Dr. Fulton is undertaking one of the grandest tasks that has ever fallen to one of her sex."
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There are accommodations for about sixty stu- dents. The first class numbered thirteen. The faculty consists of six foreign physicians and several capable native doctors. The course of study covers four years. Strict examinations are held, and diplomas given only to those who have met all the requirements. The institution is entirely self-supporting, and all the students, as well as the members of the faculty, are ear- nest Christians. It is proposed to add a train- ing-school for nurses, and a children's hospital, for which the Chinese have subscribed 83000; and when completed, the group of buildings will constitute a medical plant of which any city might be proud. Its influence in undermining idolatry and in laying the foundations of Chris- tianity will be incalculable. The China Mail in an editorial said : " Among the present-day developments of mission work and general prog- ress, there is nothing of more importance than the thorough training of Chinese women in western medicine and surgery. The field for such, when properly qualified, is practically limitless." For several years, in all the large centres, women missionaries have been engaged in precisely this work of fitting native girls for the medical profession, in which some of them have attained eminent success. One advantage of this new institution is the opportunity af- forded to train larger classes at a time, with less expenditure of missionary force.
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In China the number of women workers equals, if it does not actually exceed, that of the men. In view of what they have accom- plished since the little company gathered in the London drawing-room to listen to Dr. Abeel's appeal, there might well be inscribed upon the walls of every schoolhouse, chapel, hospital, dispensary, orphanage, and regenerated home. Sir Christopher Wren's famous motto in St. Paul's cathedral. Si monumentum requiris, eir- cumspice.
General Summary of the Third Period
Returning now from relevant digressions, it is desirable to call attention to the great changes which were coming over the vast empire of the Far East. The haughty exclusiveness of the " Son of Heaven " could no longer be maintained in the face of the military occupation of Peking and the dictation of a series of treaties by the allies. A few years later the troublesome Audi- ence Question was settled, and the relations between the court of Peking and the other gov- ernments were put on a new basis. In self- defence it became necessary for the Chinese to know something of international law, and this led them, at last, to take steps to ameliorate the condition of the army of coolies who had been sent to remote parts of the world as laborers on plantations, where they were often treated with cruelty and whence many of them never
CHRISTIAN MlSSIOIiS 187
returned. Ministers from Peking began to appear in Occidental capitals, and little by- little, despite the ignorance, the obstinacy, the selfishness, and the insincerity of the officials of the empire high and low, rays of light began everywhere to penetrate the circumambient darkness. Almost the whole of this long pe- riod was marked by a series of contests between missionaries and the Chinese officials and lit- erati, in which the latter strove to choke off the perpetual advances of the former, but always without success. Dr. Dudgeon of Peking is authority for the statement that with a view to discourage missionary efforts the official census of the einpire was materially reduced by one- third, with the connivance and by the sanction of the Board of Revenue. " The following 5^ear, as no abatement of missionary zeal followed, the figures were again added to the record." It was remarkable that in spite of the long series of more or less important riots few missionaries were actually killed. Mr. Argent, a lay mis- sionary of the English Wesleyan Society, to- gether with Mr. Green, a customs officer, was murdered at Wu Hsiieh in central China at a time of peculiar unrest. Rev. James A. Wylie of the United Presbyterian Mission was killed in Liao Yang, Manchuria, by passing soldiers, during the war against Japan.
The Great Famine. —The years 1877 and 1878 were marked by the Great Famine, which spread
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its baleful shadow over all the northern prov- inces of the empire. During the first of these years the missionaries in eastern Shantung took active steps in administering partial relief, and when the distress became general, in the year following, this was repeated on a gigantic scale. A central committee was organized in Shanghai, and both Protestant and Roman Catholic mis- sionaries, together with some members of the customs service (sixty-nine foreigners in all), engaged in the work of distribution of relief upon as large a scale as practicable. Four Protestant missionaries died from exposure and overwork, one of whom, Mr. Whiting of the American Presbyterian mission, was honored by the governor of Shansi with a public funeral in the provincial capital. The horrors of that terrible time will never pass out of remem- brance. The official report of the committee estimated the loss of life at from nine and a half to thirteen millions, and according to Dr. Williams no famine is recorded in the history of any land which equalled this in the death- rate. The gratitude of the people was real, if not always formally expressed in cordial ac- knowledgment like that of a communication from H. E. Kuo Sung Tao, Minister to Great Britain, in a letter to Lord Salisbury, in which he spoke of it as "too signal a recognition of the common brotherhood of humanity ever to be forgotten."
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As one of the incidents of this critical period it may be mentioned that Rev. Timothy Richard, then connected with the newly formed English Baptist mission in Shantung, felt drawn to go to Shansi, where he began that cultivation of an acquaintance with Chinese officials which later bore important fruits. In the year 1889 some forty families, numbering perhaps three hundred persons, of the Christians of this same mission were impelled by local distress to mi- grate from Shantung to remote Shensi (together with thousands of their fellow provincials), among them some who were the life-blood of the church, including promising young men and lads from the schools. Rather than settle in the heathen villages, they determined to erect a village for themselves where they could control their environment. After much hardship and sacrifice this was accomplished, the hamlet being styled " Fu Yin Ts'un," or " Glad Tidings Vil- lage," a name unique in China. The settlement much resembles Christian communities which have been organized in India. It was a natural outcome of this migration of the flock that some of the shepherds should be moved to follow. In spite of famine, sickness, and persecution, this graft from afar prospered, so that five years later instead of one station there were sixteen, with a large company of worshippers and many learn- ing to read.
Two Notable Gatherings. — An interesting
190 REX CREISTUS
epoch in missionary effort was marked by the gathering of the first General Conference at Shanghai in May, 1877, attended by 126 repre- sentatives of different bodies in a three days' session, the proceedings of which were gathered into a useful volume.
There were at that time 26 societies working in the empire, besides the three Bible Societies, British, Scotch, and American (29 in all), and a few unconnected workers. The total attend- ance was 478, 242 belonging to 13 British socie- ties, 210 to 10 American, and 26 were connected with two German organizations. Of the ladies 172 were wives of missionaries, and 63 were un- married. The little handful of native Chris- tians found at the close of the first war with Great Britain had multiplied to something over 13,000, and the stations occupied amounted to 92, with 318 organized churches.
At a second General Conference, also con- vened at Shanghai in May, 1890, the sessions extended to eleven days. The number of mis- sion societies in the empire was then 40, the actual attendance 445 persons, 18 of whom were unconnected. The number of mission- ary workers in China was found to be 589 men, 391 married women, and 316 unmarried women, — a great expansion over the last show- ing,— making a total of 1296. The churches were estimated at 522, and the native Christians were found to be 37,287. Sixty-one hospitals
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 191
and 44 dispensaries in the year 1889 had treated more than 348,000 patients. A care- ful examination and comparison of the merely numerical exhibits of these two conferences may convey an impression of a portion of the external results of thirteen years of labor. But the great momentum which had been ac- quired, the accumulated knowledge, the funded experience, the spiritual impetus, cannot be set down in statistical tables.
Bible and Tract Societies. — Repeated refer- ence has been made to the translations of the Bible into Chinese, under the auspices of the British and Foreign and the American Bible societies. The former organization began its work in China with the earliest translation work of Dr. Morrison, and has been one of the main- stays of the missionaries ever since. By its aid the Bible, and portions of the Bible, have been rendered into numerous colloquial dialects, and through the agency of many indefatigable col- porteurs copies of one or another of the various versions have been sold in all parts of the empire.
The work of the American Bible Society in China dates from 1834. All efforts of both soci- eties were much hindered by the unsettled con- dition of the country before and during the war with Great Britain, but as soon as that was over activity recommenced. In the earlier stages of its work the distribution of books was done
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altogether by missionaries, and for the most part gratuitously ; but this policy was altered about 1866 to the present plan of sales through general agents, and only occasional gifts. Even as late as 1870, the date of the Tientsin mas- sacre, the sales suddenly dropped from over 216,000 copies to about 37,000, showing a sensi- tiveness to political conditions like that of a barometer during a typhoon. The phenomenal record of Bible sales since the Boxer outbreak shows how important an agency this now is, and is yet to be in the future.
Each of the Bible societies has had able and active superintendents, the learned and modest Mr. Wylie representing the British and Foreign and Drs. Gulick, Wheeler, and Hykes the American society. In each decade there was a great expansion, due not merely to the widening field, but to the augmenting demands of the rap- idly growing native church. The Scotch Bible Society, being formed much later than the other.* (1860), was less hampered by constitutional restrictions, and has readily allowed the sales of tracts and Bibles together, and early sanctioned the use of annotated editions of the gospels, and suitable introductions. It has a large and well- equipped printing establishment at Hankow, and is one of the most enterprising of the agen- cies for the regeneration of the people.
There are a number of tract societies work- ing in China, one of which had its rise in the
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early dawn of mission work, being allied to the Religious Tract Society of London. At the close of the period under consideration this society and another of similar object were united under the name of the Chinese Religious Tract Society, receiving grants from the British and American Tract societies, and publishing useful magazines in Chinese. The Central China Religious Tract Society has its headquarters in Hankow, its issues being largely the production of the prolific and devoted Dr. Griffith John, who has been mentioned as one of the earlier pioneers. A North China Tract Society was organized in 1882, which has a wide field of its own, and a large number of publications and republications. Other societies of the same sort have their centres in Foochow, Kiukiang, on the Yang-tze, and more recently in western China. The products of all these organiza- tions, representing, like the Bible translations, the best work of the best Christian minds familiar with the needs of China, have greatly multiplied, and are now disseminated by hun- dreds of millions of pages. The value and fruit- fulness of this agency cannot be exaggerated.
Literary Labors. — One of the committees appointed at the conference of 1877 was "to prepare a series of school-books," the need of which was recognized. It consisted of Drs. W. A. P. Martin, Alexander Williamson, Rev. Messrs. C. W. Mateer, Y. J. Allen, R. Lechler,
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and Mr. J. Fryer. At the succeeding con- ference it appeared that forty-two separate works had been issued under the lead of this able committee, representing a vast amount of work. It was then proposed that a band of practical educators should form a new society, to be called the Educational Association of China, with a view not merely to publish school books, but to improve methods of teaching and to promote educational interests. In the transition stage in which this great and ancient empire then was, this would be a task of equal importance and difficulty. As a result of this coordination of intellectual and moral forces, a wide range of books has been prepared covering the most important branches of human learning, so that it has become possible for a Chinese pupil to receive, through the medium of his own language, the equivalent of a college education in the west. Triennial meetings of this influential and aggressive body have been held, beginning with 1893, and the results of the work which directly and indirectly are due to this agency alone are beyond computation.
Another indirect outgrowth of the text-book committee of 1877 was the organization by Dr. Williamson of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese, popularly styled the Diffusion Society. Its object was to provide high-class literature for the more intelligent of the people
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and illustrated books for families, without trenching on the fields of other organizations. Physically and intellectually Dr. Williamson was a man of large mould, and devised large things for China. His death was a great loss, but Rev. Timothy Richard, of the English Bap- tist mission, who had already shown his talent in this work, was invited to become secretary, and his mission granted permission. Mr. Rich- ard at once broadened the scope of the efforts to be undertaken and greatly widened the possible field. His idea was to strike for the enlighten- ment of the higher classes, especially the officials, from whom the greatest help might come, and the greatest opposition usually does come. During the two following years there were serious riots in central China, and an urgent appeal was issued for the preparation of literature specially adapted to win the approval of those who actu- ally hold the key to the hearts of the masses. The society published an ably edited magazine, conducted by Dr. Y. J. Allen, called the Review of the Times, as well as a similar one, The Missionary/ Review, designed especially for Christians. The avoAved object of the former was instruction of educated men and officials. With this view numerous volumes were likewise prepared, the most comprehensive being the work of a learned German scholar of the Basel Mission, Dr. Ernst Faber, under the title of "Civilization East and West." It
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is an elaborate exposition in seventy-three chapters, under five general divisions, of the fundamental principles underlying the civiliza- tion of the Occident. The circulation has been large, and the indirect results must have been great. One of the wise methods of the Diffusion Society is to distribute, through the agency of local missionaries, copies of its books accom- panied with portions of the Bible, at the literary examinations, to scholars on their departure for home. In this way the minds of the leaders of the whole empire are reached.
Power of the Printing-Press. — The great streams of Christian literature implied in the preceding jjaragraphs could not have been pro- duced without the aid of mission presses, of which the chief has been that of the American Presbyterian mission in Shanghai, which cele- brated its jubilee in 1894. Much of its phe- nomenal success in its second stage of existence is due to the singular gifts and industry of Mr. William Gamble, who arrived in 1858. He came from an old Irish Presbyterian family, and, after emigrating to the United States, worked in a large establishment in Philadelphia, and then in the Bible House, New York, whence he went to Ningpo, where the press then was, taking new type, matrices, and a casting-ma- chine. " With his two main inventions, — the making of matrices of Chinese type by the elec- trotype process, and the Chinese type-case as
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now generally in use, — added to his keen busi- ness faculty, indomitable perseverance, unfail- ing patience, and true missionary spirit, he succeeded in so developing the Mission Press that it speedily grew from infantile proportions into a mighty agency for achieving great re- sults. He did a work that has hardly been equalled in the annals of missions, or in the history of the development of the art of prints ing. Owing to the geographical position of Shanghai, this great establishment bears a unique relation to all the missions in China. For the last fifteen years it has been under the expert management of Rev. George F. Fitch, upon whose desk are daily poured letters from all parts of China, and from well-nigh all parts of the world. Almost every individual mis- sionary in China has dealings with the Press, and at the time of the jubilee there were more than a thousand names on its ledgers. Its Chinese force then numbered 96 men, besides 30 binders outside, and for the five preceding years the out]3ut had been something over 200,000,000 pages, of which 123,000,000 were scriptures, more than 43,000,000 religious books and tracts, and above 18,000,000 magazines. For twenty years a Chinese elder of the Pres- byterian church had served as its cashier (com- pradore'), "and, while hundreds of thousands of dollars had passed through his hands, it is not known that a single dollar had ever been
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misappropriated." In 1861 the American Meth- odist mission began a press at Foochow, which, under the superintendency of Rev. Messrs. S. L. Baldwin, L. N. Wheeler, N. J. Plumb, and others, has done much work, printing not only for the southeastern provinces, but also for Hongkong, Bangkok, and central and north- ern China.
. Reference was made in speaking of the early period of missions to the printing-press of the American Board under Dr. Bridgman, soon after taken over by Dr. S. Wells Williams. That was destroyed by fire in Canton in 1858, and ten years later Mr. P. R. Hunt, formerly of Madras, was sent to Peking to set up a press there, which under different managements was contin- ued till it was destroyed by the Boxers in June, 1900. It was useful in printing the scriptures in mandarin colloquial, and in much work for the North China Tract Society, and for various missions. Other presses were established by the Church Missionary Society at Ningpo (1869) ; by the English Presbyterian mission at Swa- tow (1880) for printing books in the Romanized colloquial ; by the National Bible Society of Scotland, already referred to, at Hankow (1885) ; by the American Methodist mission at Kiukiang (1890), and later in Peking in connection with the Peking University. In the latter city the Anglican mission also has a press. The China Inland Mission has one at Tai Chou, the United
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Presbyterian mission at Newchwang, and the American Presbyterian mission on the island of Hainan.
This third period closed with the unexpected outcome of a needless war with Japan, which exposed to all the world the inherent weakness of China, and her inability to play the part which had been forced upon her in the " sister- hood of nations."
The Fourth Period, 1895 to 1903
During the protracted war with Japan the Chinese for the first time learned to distinguish between different nationalities of foreigners. The government undertook to protect neutrals, and while many mission stations had to be tem- porarily abandoned, there were many others in which the missionaries remained in tranquillity, and, as it proved, in safety. But the strange position in which China found herself, and the complete inability of the people to comprehend what was going on, led to exhibitions of dissat- isfaction and race hatred, with a blind violence which was an amazement to the most experi- enced. In the peaceable province of Ssuch'uan riots broke out which resembled a tropical thun- der-storm, driving to the seacoast more than eighty foreigners. During the progress of the continued persecutions it was reported that more than fifty thousand Christians had suffered in various ways, many having been killed. The
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primary source of these troubles was the recent war- It was known that the officials were anti- foreign, and it was proved that the troubles were incited by them. During the summer of this year a terrible tragedy took place in Ku Ch'eng, in the Fukien province, where Rev. Mr. Stewart, his wife, family, and associates — ten persons in all — were attacked by members of a Vegetarian Society and killed. Explicit impe- rial decrees were issued in regard to these events, but the spirit which caused them re- mained unaltered.
At the General Conference of 1890 a strong committee had been appointed to put before the Chinese government a Statement of the Nature, the Work, and Aims of Protestant Missions in China. Up to this time it had made no report, but on Nov. 11, 1895, a very comprehensive document was laid before the Tsung Li Yaraen, to be presented to the emperor. This paper pointed out the fact that Christianity is preached all over the world ; that its growth has been steady since its origin ; that it is an Oriental religion ; and that it is not new nor recently established. Special efforts were made to show what Christianity teaches ; its instructions in regard to obedience to rulers, and in regard to filial piety. Its peculiar tenets were enlarged upon, its past history and the honor in which the Christian church is held in western lands, its relations to Christian civilization, its output
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of useful literature in China, its toleration in China under successive dynasties, and in con- clusion it was prayed that the decrees ordering the suppression of false and calumnious books and placards should be rigorously executed. The substance of the closing petition was granted, but the strange, complex organization known as the government of China went on its way as before. There were outrages here and there upon missionaries, converts, and chapels, verbal reproof, and a lingering settlement or no settle- ment at all. The whole " missionary question " was once more raised in the press of China and the home lands, and after strong presentation of both sides, no discerning observer could fail to perceive that here is a sociological force beyond the reach of any statesman or group of statesmen, which must of necessity be allowed to work itself out.
A Wonderful Awakening. — Meantime the num- ber of missionaries, in spite of massacre, was rapidly increasing. The conference of 1890 had called for 1000 more men, as well as a large reinforcement of women workers, to be sent out within five years. At the expiration of that time it was ascertained that the number of recruits had been 1153, but of these 505 were unmarried women, and 167 wives of mission- aries. In view of the increasing need the com- mittee renewed the appeal in stirring terms. There was a great awakening in Manchuria,
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where the people, being largely immigrants from other provinces, appeared to be more accessible to new ideas and to Christianity than else- where.
The first provincial union of the growing Christian Endeavor Society was organized in Canton by Rev. A. A. Fulton. Great conven- tions under the lead of Mr. John R. Mott and others were held at many accessible points, and both Chinese and foreigners were deeply moved; for this was rightly felt to be the promise and potency of much greater things yet to come. The work of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation began to be heard of in China, a youthful giant which will expand with the new century till it fills all the land.
The Anti-Foot-binding Society. — All mission- aries have always been opposed to Chinese foot-binding, but in these years, under the lead of Mrs. Alicia Little, the wife of a British mer- chant, the matter was taken up in earnest by the foreign community ladies, and in a wonderfully short time a great public sentiment had been developed among the Chinese themselves, espe- cially the highest officials, many of whom gave great impetus to the movement. The society which these ladies organized had the enterprise and audacity to try to get the matter before the emperor and the empress dowager, but their memorial was politely stifled in the ar- chives of the Tsung Li Yamen. No one could
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then have been made to believe that within a few years the empress dowager herself would openly advocate this reform, as has recently happened.
Other Reforms. — The hostile province of Hu- nan, by the operation of natural and inevitable causes, was " opened," just as China itself had been, two generations before, and began to clamor for more light. A hundred copies of the Review of the Times were ordered, and the services of able men were asked to help dispel the darkness. All this was but casting up a highway for the diffusion of the light of the gospel. There were reform societies organ- ized even among the Hanlins of Peking, and there were signs of the possibility of a new life everywhere. The railway from Tientsin to Peking was completed at once and proved an immense success, while the Lu Han line from the capital to Hankow was pushed forward. Yet the years following the treaty at the close of the war with Japan were, on the whole, a time of continued disappointment to the friends of China. There was no serious effort to make the indispensable changes without which it was doubtful whether the empire could longer be held together.
China in Convulsion. — We have thus far fol- lowed the Protestant missionary effort from its beginnings down nearly to the close of the nineteenth century, and have seen the little one
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become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation. For the next quadrennium the story of that effort is so implicated with the political history of the Chinese Empire that it is impos- sible even to understand the former without adequate knowledge of the latter. Merely to recapitulate in outline the events which led to the emperor's attempt at reform in 1898, leading to his overthrow in September of that year, and the counterblast of the empress dowager in the year and a half following, would expand the remainder of this chapter into a volume, and would, after all, convey no correct impression. It is therefore necessary to refer the reader to fuller sources of information elsewhere, while we confine ourselves to a few general observations, of the justice of which the discriminating stu- dent must be his own judge.
The convulsion which shook China to its foundations was due to general causes, slow in their operation, but inevitable in their results. It was the impact of the Middle Ages with the developed Christian commercial civilization of the nineteenth century, albeit accompanied with many incidental elements which were neither Christian nor in the true sense civilized. If Christianity had never come to China at all, some such collision must have occurred, unless both Manchus and Chinese had shown them- selves more ready to adapt themselves to the altered condition of a new time than has ever
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heretofore been the case. All impulse toward the real renovation of China came from without. Every force from within had long since been exhausted and more than exhausted. Making all allowance for every influence brought to bear upon China anywhere and at any time, we find those which had their origin in Christianity far to outweigh all the rest. Attention has been repeatedly called to the wide missionary itineration, the unceasing efforts at evangeliz- ing all parts of the empire, the universal circu- lation of the scriptures, and especiall}^ the magazines, particularly the Review of the Times, and other publications of the Diffusion Society. These had penetrated China as aqueous vapor pervades the atmosphere, making indeed no external display, but preparing the way for future precipitation.
In the beginning of 1898 the emperor sent for books to the number of 129, a full list of which was published in the report of the Dif- fusion Society for that year, beginning with Dr. Faber's " Civilization," already mentioned, and ending with a " Child's Prayer." If, we repeat, there had been no missionary effort in China, that empire would still have been brought into collision with the rest of the world, but there would then have been only destructive and no constructive forces brought into action. It is the peculiarity and the glory of Christianity to show how a nation and a race, as well as an
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individual, may be regenerated. The hostility of the Chinese people was first of all toward foreigners as such, by whom they saw, or sup- posed themselves to see, their empire despoiled. But there was also a large residuum of that natu- ral antipathy of the human heart to any divine teaching which uncompromisingly points out weaknesses and faults, and which is no respecter of person. Amid the varied action of so many agents it is vain to deny that Christianity has sometimes been so presented as to be misrepre- sented, but on the whole there had for some time been a marked and a growing friendliness on the part of both people and officials, which not infrequently led missionaries to the erroneous conclusion that the days of their mourning were now ended. The semi-political adminis- tration of the Roman Catholic church in China unquestionably excited the active animosity of many who were either outwardly amicable, or at least neutral toward Protestants. Of this fact there were innumerable examples during a series of years, and these continue down to the present time.
The Great Boxer Rising
This began in the early summer of 1899 (preludes having, however, been experienced in different places earlier) and it continued with intermittent sequence for fifteen months or more. It was in many respects one of the
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most unique phenomena of the century. In the regions where it originated and where its withering influence was longest felt, it almost paralyzed its victims with fear. When, in accordance with orders from Peking, the Christians were commanded to recant or to die, Chinese ideas of obedience to the properly constituted authorities impelled multitudes to a formal compliance who had no wish to deny their faith. This was especially the case in Shantung, where the long-continued strain was most felt, and where the alluring phrase " tem- porarily abjure" was employed in official proc- lamations. Many Christians chose rather to fly from the storm, becoming wanderers and fugitives on the face of the earth, rather than send in to the yamen written notice of the recantation. But the greater number, unable to take with them their families, unwilling to abandon their parents, and filled with corrod- ing anxiety about their scanty but precious possessions, fell into the cunningly laid trap, and did what was demanded. A certain pro- portion went to the temples as well, for, having been forced to take the first step, they found no place for pause. This, however, was far from universal. It is probable that the instruction of nearly all the Christians had been defective in regard to the right course of action to be taken under these crucial circumstances.
In Chihli, Manchuria, and Sliansi the coming
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of the fearful storm was far more sudden, frequently resembling a typhoon, which, unan- nounced, overwhelms its victims in remediless ruin. There is scarcely any form of cruelty known to the Chinese which was not practised upon these terribly persecuted sheep without shepherds. Great numbers resisted every effort to make them renounce their faith, though they were sometimes buried alive by degrees; oppor- tunity being given at different stages of the process to save themselves. In other instances they were roasted to death with kerosene, or hacked into small pieces with swords, their bodies thrown into running streams, or burned to ashes which were ground under heavy rollers, to prevent the victims from rising within three days from the dead and exacting vengeance. These cases of loyalty to their divine Master were well matched by a similar fidelity to their missionary friends, for Avhom many Christians willingly gave their own lives, although they were aware that the offering would not avail to save them. The numerous examples of this sort have presented the character of the Chris- tianized Chinese in a new light, and the whole horrible experience has been an appendix to the Acts of the Apostles and to the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The literature of the Christian church has been per- manentl)'- enriched by these records, constantly increasing in number and variety. To them
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the interested reader must be referred for a more adequate summary, as well as for details. The devastating Boxer cyclone cost the lives of 135 adult Protestant missionaries, and 53 chil- dren ; of 35 Roman Catholic Fathers, and nine Sisters. The Protestants were in connection with ten different missions, one being uncon- nected. They were murdered in four provinces and in Mongolia, and belonged to Great Britain, the United States, and Sweden. No such out- break against Christianity has been seen in modern times. The destruction of property was on the same continental scale. Generally speaking all mission stations north of the Yellow River, with all their dwelling-houses, chapels, hospitals, dispensaries, schools, and buildings of every description were totally de- stroyed, though there were occasional excep- tions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and south- ern portions of the empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not be- cause they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu K'un Yi and Chang Chih Tung, governors-general of the four great prov- inces in the Yang-tse valley ; Yuan Shih K'ai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shensi. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the move- ment was unable to project itself in force, but
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much mischief in an isolated way was wrought in nearly every part of China not rigorously controlled.
Effect on the Native Church. — The havoc wrought in all mission plants was a symbol of the devastation in the native church. In many places it was dispersed to all the winds of heaven. In others it was literally exterminated. Many unworthy members hastened to withdraw from its connection when trouble came ; but it is a significant fact that perhaps quite as many others who had waxed lukewarm and had been dropped from the rolls, finding no discrimination made by Boxers between them and others in better church standing, came to the conclusion that if they were to be pillaged and threatened as Christians, in spite of their record, they might as well be Christians to make sure of some refuge in the beyond, even if none were to be found here ! The suffer- ings of the poor, harassed, tempest-tossed wan- derers were most pitiful, subjected alike to the insults of their bitterest enemies and the taunts of their relatives and neighbors. " Where now is that Den-of-lions and Fiery-furnace Jesus of yours ? Ask him to come and untie you ! " said a scoffing spectator to one who had been seized and bound, and was expecting execution. Nothing was more common than for own daugh- ters to refuse their aged mothers a temporary shelter from pursuit. "No! You cannot come
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in here and implicate us. Go to your foreign- religion friends ; no doubt they will look after you ! "
But much worse trials were yet to come. When at length the tide slowly turned, the Boxer leaders proscribed, and the plunderers of Christians in danger of arrest and heavy fines, then arose fierce temptations to which many, alas, succumbed — the thirst for that revenge so dear to the Chinese heart, and so insistently inculcated in the classics. In regions where the conditions admitted of it, it was so easy to loot without fear of consequences, the possibilities of extortion loomed so large and appeared so attractive ! The indemnities which were freely paid by the Chinese government, or by local officials, proved to many a greater snare than Boxer threats or imperial edicts. One's vanished possessions rose in one's estima- tion after they had taken their flight. What more natural than to persuade oneself any amount attainable would not be too much for what had been suffered? The quarrels and heart-burnings in the process of the division of whatever allowance had been made by way of reparation for wrongs were a far harder test of Christian faith than the sudden necessity for a decision to recant and live or to refuse and die. These temptations, perils, sins need to be set before us in a clear lime-light to make it plain what tests the native church in China has
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passed through before the Boxer madness, while it lasted, and especially since. These conditions brouglit the best men in those churches to the front, and showed them as pure gold tried in the fire. The mercy of the Lord did not al- together deprive them of their foreign teachers, as the latter were only for a time withdrawn. When they returned, the great task of strength- ening the things which remain began in earnest, and this has been going on ever since. The Chinese church is not yet strong enough to stand entirely alone, but it is far stronger and more self-conscious of the eternal indwelling Spirit than ever before. It has learned the power of God to keep the soul in times of deadly peril, and to enable the weakest to give the strongest testimony. It has learned by humiliation and confession to put away its sins, and to gird itself for new conflicts and new victories.
The public and honorable funerals given in provincial capitals and elsewhere, not to the foreign martyrs only, but also to the Chi- nese, attended as they were by the highest ofiQ- cials, and conducted with punctilious Oriental ceremon}^, have, from a native point of view, placed the church before the people of China in an altogether new light. Its ablest leaders are more trustworthy men than before their trials, and the body of believers has a unity and a cohesiveness which will certainly bear fruit in
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 213
the not distant future. It is especially note- worthy that in the most important cities, as a direct result of the unequalled opportuni- ties afforded by the total and simultaneous destruction of all mission property, in the ensu- ing reconstruction everything was on a larger scale than before, and one far better adapted to the needs of the work. Mission compounds which had long been straitened with no hope of relief were at once doubled in size, or more than doubled, and the outcome of the effort to extirpate missionaries and expel all foreigners has been such improvements in mission plants as might not otherwise have been realized in a century.
The Aftermath. — It is a typical Chinese fact that two full years after the Boxer delusion had been exposed, discredited, and extinguished in the provinces which gave it birth, the move- ment took firm root once more in remote Ssu- ch'uan, with the familiar phenomena so often seen elsewhere. Large bands practised by night and by day, the wildest plans were laid for driving out and exterminating foreigners and delivering China. Chapels were destroyed. Christians looted, and many of them killed. But for the presence of an able and energetic governor-general, the whole province would have been swept into the madness. Sporadic outbreaks have occurred elsewhere, but it is certain that they are no longer encouraged by
214 BEX CURISTUS
the responsible officials, and most of them come to an early end. There is no doubt that, accom- panied as it is by heavy exactions for the benefit of the mandarins, the foreign indemnity presses hard upon China, and will do so for a genera- tion yet to come. What that period may bring forth, no one is qualified to say. The political horizon is full of clouds, and the impending crisis may involve changes in the rulers of the empire. But whatever happens, the Chinese people will remain, and it is certain that they cannot long remain as they now are.
All signs indicate that China is open as never before. Foreign languages are eagerly studied in the very cities where, but a short time since, all foreigners were killed. There is an unprec- edented demand for the publications of all the presses, Bibles, tracts, and the books and maga- zines of the Diffusion Society, the sales of which increased from a little over $12,000 worth (Mex- ican) in 1897, to more than $33,000 worth in 1902. It is supposed that text-books to the value of perhaps a quarter of a million of dollars were sold in Shanghai in that year. The Pres- byterian Press received four commissions for books from the capital of Ssuch'uan, one of them by telegraph, ordering books to be sent by mail, though the postage bill alone amounted to $328 ! At a dinner-party given in that year in Pao Ting Fu to officials and to missionaries by Yuan Shih K'ai, then governor of Shantung and
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 215
now viceroy of Chilili, on his departure for his new post, he made the interesting statement that upon inquiry he had found that mission- aries were always in the vanguard of progress in all lands, and that he was therefore glad to welcome them at his table. But inasmuch as there were no books in Chinese to give such in- formation as the officials generally sought about the rise and progress of Christianity, he had taken the Bible and a boxful of Protestant and Roman Catholic books in Chinese, and had sent them to a Chinese doctor in literature whom he had engaged to read them through, and then write a brief digest of the whole. Some time later he brought the result to Dr. Richard in Peking, and asked him to revise them before they should be published. This revision was greatly needed, as they contained undigested fragments from the Old and New Testaments, from Protestant and Roman Catholic writers, and from the records of the Foreign Office. This incident, mentioned by Dr. Richard in his report of the Diffusion Society, exhibits in a striking manner China's need of more light.
According to German statistics, quoted by Mr. Beach in his " Geography of Protestant Mis- sions," the total number of foreign missionaries in China at the beginning of 1900 was 2785, of whom 610 were ordained, 773 were wives of missionaries, and 825 other ladies. There were 162 male physicians and 79 women. The aggre-
216 BEX CHRISTUS
gate of native workers was 6388, and the total number of native Christians 112,808, of which the province of Fukien contained more than 25,000 ; Kuangtung, 15,000; Manchuria, 9900 ; Chekiang, 9250 ; Chihli, 8000 ; Hupeh, 4650 ; and Kiangsi, 4570. The number of differ- ent organizations working in the empire had increased from the forty of 1890 to sixty-seven. Since the restoration of the empire to order and quiet, the number of missionaries is again on the increase, and by the time of the next con- ference (which was to have been held in 1901), there will have been an expansion in every direction such as, at the beginning of mission work a hundred years previous, would have been beyond the bounds of the wildest imagina- tion. But even at that early date it was not beyond the limits of the faith of those whose motto, like that of Carey, was "Ask great things of God ; expect great things of God."
SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
It is impossible to raise the men of the East unless the ■women are raised, and real converts among Asiatic women, especially among the Chinese, make admirable Christians. — Isabella Bird Bishop.
I fully believe that until the gospel is implanted in the hearts of those who are to rule the homes there cannot be a great awakening of the men and boys. We have in- stances where men have been church members for some time and have never taught their families; but I have
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 217
noticed that when the women receive the glad tidings it is not long before these homes are acquainted with the fact. — Mrs. E. C. Titus.
Much has been said about sending ladies to China as missionaries. Possibly, if I had never seen the ladies at work, I might agree with these critics, but the truth is that they do the hardest part and the most of the work in China. The teaching of the children and the nursing and treating of the sick women and children, surgical and medical, fall to their lot. I have not space to praise them here, and I could not say sufficient good of them if I had. — Hon. Charles Denbt.
Bondage to Custom
Engagements are almost as binding as marriages in China. . . . Yet what shall we say to the case of a dainty little hospital assistant, a bright and winning girl, who is betrothed to an idiot who cannot walk without assistance, and who makes awful faces when he tries to speak his unintelligible jargon? This betrothal took place because the girl's father liked the boy's grandfather^ who is now dead, and so are both the girl's parents. "What can be done ? I believe the cure will come in time by an enlightened generation of Christians refusing to make infantile betrothals. — Mrs. Arnold Foster.
One Out of Five
One fifth of all the women of the world are found in the homes of China. One baby girl out of every five is cradled in a Chinese mother's arms unwelcomed and un- loved, unless by that poor mother's heart. One little maiden out of every five grows up in ignorance and neg- lect, drudging in the daily toil of some poor Chinese family, or crying over the pain of her crippled feet in the seclusion of a wealthier home. Among all the youthful
218 BEX CHRISTUS
brides, who day by day pass from the shelter of their childhood's home, one out of every five goes weeping in China to the tyranny of the mother-in-law she dreads, and the indifference of a husband she has never seen. Of all the wives and mothers in the world, one out of every five turns in her longing to a gilded goddess of mercy in some Chinese temple, counting her beads and murmuring her meaningless prayer. Of all the women who weep, one out of every five weeps alone, uncomforted, in China. Out of every five who lie upon beds of pain, one is wholly at the mercy of Chinese ignorance and superstition. One out of every five, at the close of earthly life, passes into the shadow and terror that surround a Chinese grave, never having heard of Him who alone can rob death of its sting. One fifth of all the women are waiting, wait- ing in China, for the Saviour who so long has waited for them. What a burden of responsibility does this lay upon us — the women of Christendom !
— Mrs. F. Howard Taylor.
Were the women only converted we believe that idol- atry would soon cease out of the land.
— William Muirhead.
Nearly one half of the women of the world belong to the two great empires of China and India. . . . The women conserve the ancient religions and superstitions of their country ; and what can a man do when the women of the household are against him?
— Isabelle Williamson.
The word " home," which is unthinkable by us apart from the tender ministry of woman, is represented in the Chinese language by a pig under a roof. In most cases it is an accurate description of the Chinese home, which to our eyes is often little better than a pigsty. Of course the Chinaman does not mean to satirize his home. To him the pig is the symbol of " plenty." . . . Again, our
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 219
sense of all that is sacred receives a severe shock when we discover that the word " marriage " is represented by a woman and a pig practically under the same roof. . . . Until we have a race of Christian mothers in the homes we despair of producing a high tyjje of Christian char- acter among the members of the native church.
— J. Miller Graham.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. Women's Work for their Sisters in China.
II. Some Notable Women Missionaries in China.
III. Chinese Women as Christian Workers.
IV. Schools for Girls in China.
V. Young Men's Christian Associations and Christian
Endeavor Societies. VI. Peking and Nanking as Educational Centres. VII. Yung Wing and His Chinese Boys in the United
States. VIII. Lessons Learned from the War with Japan. IX. Brewing of the Boxer Storm. X. Compare the Empress Dowager with Catherine II
of Russia. XI. The Siege of Peking. XII. Message of the Martyrs.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
General References as before
Berry's " Sister Martyrs of Ku Cheng." II, III. Broomhall's " Martyrs of China Inland Mission." IX, XII. Chang Chih Tung, " China's Only Hope." VIIL Condit's "The Chinaman as We See Him." Ill, V,
VI, VII. "Crisis in China" (reprint of articles in North American
Review). VIII, IX. Edwards's " Fire and Sword in Shansi." U, IX, XII.
220 BEX CHRISTUS
Foster's " Christian Progress in China." I, II, III, IV.
Graham's " East of the Barrier." I, IX.
Graves's " Forty Years in China." VIII.
Ketler's " The Tragedy of Paotingfu." II, VIII, IX, X,
XI, XII. Lewis's " Educational Conquest of the Far East." VIII,
IX. Martin's " The Chinese." VI. Miner's " Two Heroes of Cathay." IX. Mott's "Strategic Points in the World's Conquest." V. Report of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference, 1900.
I, II, III, IV, V, VI. Ross's " Mission Methods in Manchuria." VIII. Smith's " China in Convulsion." VIII, IX, X, XI, XII. Wilson's " China." VII, VIII, IX, X, XL
Articles on China in Periodicals (see Appendix) : —
Contemporary, Vol. 70, " Reform of China and the Revo- lution of 1898." IX.
Forum, Vol. 18, " Significance of the China-Japan War." VIIL
Review of Reviews, Vol. 22, " The Chinese Revolution." IX.
CHAPTER VI
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY
The Chinese Empire is by far the most ex- tensive field ever opened to the conquests of the church of God. Gibbon estimated that the Roman Empire contained 120,000,000 persons ; but it is certain that China has a population be- tween three and four times as great. This unex- ampled magnitude, which at times seems almost overwhelming, is accompanied and conditioned by a homogeneity, which, whether we consider its duration in time or its persistence, is a phe- nomenon unparalleled among the nations of history. Amid all their endless diversities the ideas and the ideals of the Chinese people are substantially the same. In this respect China is antipodal to that museum of races, languages, religions, and civilizations, to which we give the merely geographical appellation of India. In China influences can be propagated from one extremity of the empire to the other, to which difference of race and language would elsewhere be an almost complete barrier. According to the best estimates the mandarin dialect alone, in some one of its forms, is spoken by three hun-
221
222 REX CHRISTUS
dred millions of Chinese. Countless prefectures and even single counties have a population greatly in excess of that of whole groups of Polynesian islands. It should be especially noted that the greatest specific hindrance which the gospel encounters in India is altogether absent in China, which never had a system of caste and would never have submitted to it. The Chinese have always been a race religiously tolerant. They are a marvellous example of unity in diver- sity and diversity in unity. They have repeat- edly shown themselves to be hospitable to new religious ideas, as is shown by the rapid and universal spread of Buddhism, and also by the root struck into Chinese soil by Nestorianism and the mediaeval Roman Catholic missions, each of which failed from internal rather than from external causes. Had Chinese Mohammedanism been a missionarj'- religion, perhaps it might long since have taken possession of China. There is a powerful democratic element in Chinese so- ciety to which no adequate justice has yet been done.
No people were ever more easily governed than the Chinese, when the government has been in the direction of their ideals. Feeling the inadequacy of the current faiths — or no faiths — they have originated a bewildering multitude of secret sects, with which the empire is literally honeycombed. Probably not more than a small number of them are really political
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 223
in their ultimate aims; but while the government forbids them all alike, it finds itself powerless to put them down. Seriously to attempt it on a large scale might, and probably would, cause a revolution, in which new rulers would take the helm of the ship of state, after which the secret sects would flourish as before. The practical Chinese have a wonderful talent for compromise. They dislike to press things to extremities. It is a universally accepted axiom that if a single individual is willing to sacrifice his life, ten thousand men cannot hinder him.
The once almost impassable barrier of the Chinese language has been completely scaled, as well as tunnelled. It is extremely rare that one otherwise fitted for work in China is obliged to give up that ambition through inability to mas- ter the colloquial speech. A great and rapidly increasing Christian plant has been set up in every part of China. Almost every corner of the empire has been penetrated again and again. The experience of thousands of workers has been funded and put at compound interest. As compared with a century ago we have of China and the Chinese a vast, a varied, and an aug- menting knowledge.
The real motive of Christianity in pressing itself upon China is beginning to be dimly ap- prehended by many who until lately never heard of it. This is indeed a slow process, but it is a process which is continually going on in the
224 REX CRRISTUS
minds of men, and of women as well, in all ranks of life, from the empress dowager to the peasants grinding at a mill. Race hatred and suspicion survive, and increase too, after their kind, and will continue to survive after seons shall have passed away; but in spite of them Christianity gets a better, a fairer, a fuller hear- ing than before, with each new advance.
A Modern Miracle. — The survival of the Christian church notwithstanding the fierce onslaught of Boxer fanaticism, armed with illimitable supernatural powers and backed by the highest authority in the empire, is a stand- ing miracle which invites examination and com- pels explanation. Since the foreign soldiers, as a rule, neither knew nor cared anything about the Chinese Christian church, it cannot be ex- plained as due to force of arms. It cannot be charged to diplomatic patronage, for in the final treaties between the Powers and China, mis- sionary interests were studiously ignored. Had they been raised as a living question, there was so much disagreement that no action could have been unanimous, and without unanimity there could have been no action at all. Why, then, was not the church exterminated? How came Chinese officials, without diplomatic pressure of any kind, and wholly of their own accord, to grant indemnities for losses to those native Christians of whom, but a few months before, im- perial edicts had commanded the slaughtering ?
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 225
The more it is considered, the more clearly will it be perceived that no story of the three chil- dren in the furnace of fire, or of Daniel deliv- ered from the hungry lions, is more worthy of careful investigation than the continued exist- ence of the Christian church under apparently impossible conditions. The steadfastness shown by many individual members of that church, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, in refus- ing to recant, and in sealing their testimony with their lives, is an irrefragable argument in favor of the genuineness of their faith. Great numbers, it is true, did recant, just as we have too much reason to fear would be the case in our own land under like fiery trial, and great numbers of these have confessed their sin and weakness, and have turned unto the Lord for help and grace, just as like sufferers have done in every age. Proofs offered by genuine and unobtrusive martyrdom the Chinese can com- prehend as well as we can, and they do not attempt to refute them. Their existence on a large scale makes a background for preaching Christ to the Chinese, hitherto unavailable.
A United Church. — An important incidental effect of the almost complete destruction in sev- eral provinces of the outward symbols of mission work, has been a marked impulse on the part of Protestant missions toward a greater unity, di- minishing competition, economizing labor, and increasing the output. To what extent this
Q
226 EEX CEBI8TUS
may be carried cannot yet be known, but union educational institutions, both in Chihli and in Shantung, are now assured. It is not too much to expect in due time a practical federation of Christian churches in China which will present a united front to the enemy, and which will lead to the introduction of Christian influences upon a far larger scale than at present. Protestant missions with essential unanimity emphatically decline the offer of the Chinese government to confer official recognition upon their leaders. They refuse to interfere in the ordinary pro- ceedings of the Chinese courts of justice. The fact of this settled policy is coming to be more and more understood by all ranks of Chinese officials. The opposite practice of the Roman Catholic church in each particular, what- ever advantages it may appear to give for a time, is making clear the fundamental differ- ences between these two forms of Christianity, and we need not fear the result. In the Boxer troubles Protestants suffered much because they were mistaken for Romanists, against whom there was not unreasonably much prejudice. It is not unlikely that the same phenomenon may be repeated in other forms, but the con- flict and the resultant discrimination seem to be inevitable^ In the communities where they exist, there is an augmenting influence of the Christian churches, and since the Boxer up- rising collapsed, this influence has greatly in-
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 227
creased. Many Chinese officials for the first time have come into contact with educated Chris- tian Chinese, and have been struck with their good sense, their capabilities, and their evident moral integrity. In China these qualities in combination are rare indeed. Their existence is a prophecy and a promise. The Chinese know very well how to talk about preferring righteous- ness to gain. But when one of their most pro- gressive governors is popularly believed to have paid a bribe of twenty thousand ounces of silver to the Manchu nearest the throne to get his ap- pointment confirmed, the spectacle of a poor Chinese who respectfully and modestly, but firmly, declines to take surreptitiously a sum of money which would quietly place him beyond the fear of poverty, is one which cannot fail to have its influence. China has occasionally had men who would do this, and one of them who lived and died in the Han dynasty (124 a.d.) is still cherished in the national memory. But China has never had the art of producing such men, and its introduction will be owing solely to Christianity.
Power of Regenerated Lives. — The " out- populating power of the Christian stock," in- sisted upon more than half a century ago by Dr. Horace Bushnell, is a most important factor in the coming evangelization of China. Where the family is the unit of social life, as the vil- lage of political life, the renovation of the family
228 BEX CHRISTUS
is the great social problem. Christianity under- takes this mighty task by regenerating the fathers, the mothers, the husbands, the wives, the children, and the neighbors. An intelligent official who glanced through a small Christian tract explaining by scripture texts the duties of each of these classes to one another, remarked, " This is good ; if every one were to act like tJiat, I should have no trouble in governing the people." To the five human relations of the Chinese, must be added, or rather prefixed, the divine relation between God and man, before society can have either an adequate basis or a legitimate object.
There will be developed in an ever increasing ratio assistance from the Chinese themselves from the ranks of the native church, for it is by them that the real work must ultimately be done. The first foreign workers are of necessity isolated, and without helpers. With the expan- sion of the church as an organic and coordinated body, workers of all grades of efficiency will more and more appear. A large part of the future literature by which China is to be moved must be achieved by them. In them is the hope of China. The philanthropies which have been ancillary and subordinate to the work of Christian missions in China, have exerted a wide, a deep, and, we may well believe, a perma- nent influence upon the people. In the Great Famine of 1877-1878, and in numerous similar
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 229
emergencies since, vast sums from abroad have been disbursed to needy Chinese. The methods of distribution have necessarily been far from scientific, for the problem is too profound to be attacked except upon its edges. An army of agents supplied with the revenues of an empire would still be altogether inadequate. We are for the most part quite helpless to remove the causes of these great calamities, which recur Avith the persistence of a repeating decimal. Yet something has been accomplished ; best of all, a great object-lesson in practical Christianity has been given, which has deeply affected many Chinese officials of great influence, and has cer- tainly done much to remove the prejudices of millions of people. The Christianization of a land like China proceeds, as we have seen, along many distinct but coordinated lines. In its present stage it is practically impossible to dis- sociate evangelism from education, and it can be accomplished only by the unlimited use of Christian literature, and of secular literature prepared from a Christian point of view.
The temper of many of the officials in China is not unfrequently thoroughly pessimistic. They are profoundly dissatisfied with the condi- tion of their country, without being at all aware of the real sources of its weakness. They per- ceive that everything ought to be done, but they do not clearly see how, under present conditions, anything can be done. As in the great coal
230 BEX CERISTUS
strike in the United States, every one feels the pressure of the trouble, and perhaps every one has some more or less vague notions about its causes. But to the question, ^'■WJiat can we do about it?" few have a definite answer. To China in this mood, twentieth century Chris- tianity ought to come with a clear message. China needs light, and those who have the Light of the World ought to bestow it, for it is evident that the hope of the empire lies in Christian education.
Educational Reforms. — After much vacillation the government of China appears to be acting upon a more or less clear recognition of the need of radical reformation in the fossilized methods of the past. On the 29th of August, 1901, an imperial decree was issued commanding the abo- lition of the examination essay, or wen-chang, for literary degrees, in favor of short essays upon modern matters and western laws, constitution, and political economy. The same procedure is to be observed in future iji examining candidates for office. A similar decree commanded that the usual methods of conferring military degrees after trials of strength with stone weights, agility with the sword, marksmanship with the bow and arrow, on foot and on horseback, should be defi- nitely abolished, as having no relation to strategy and to that military science which for military officers is indispensable. Instead of the former methods, military academies are to be established
THE OPEN BOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 231
in the various provincial capitals, the students being required to be examined in their knowl- edge of literature as well as in military science and drill. In the following month a decree was issued commanding all existing colleges in the empire to be turned into schools and colleges of western learning, each provincial capital to have a university like that in Peking, the colleges in prefectures and districts to be tributary to those at the provincial capital. The system is ulti- mately to be completed by the general introduc- tion of primary scliools in the villages. A few days later another decree was issued ordering the governors-general and governors to follow the example of Liu K'un Yi (since deceased), Chang Chih Tung, and others, in sending abroad young men of scholastic promise and ability to study any branch of western science or art best suited to their abilities and tastes, so that in time they might return to China and place the fruits of their knowledge at the service of the emperor.
Thus we behold the kernel of the reforms ordered by his Majesty, Kuang Hsu, in 1898, and which led to his dethronement and impris- onment, substantially adopted less than three years later by the empress dowager and her advisers. It must not, however, be supposed that the issue of decrees like these indicates a steady and a consistent purpose on the part of the government to adopt real reforms. In
232 REX CHRISTUS
many cases the responsibility for the execu- tion of these plans is committed to officials thoroughly hostile to their intent. For a long time to come the progress made must be so slight as to be scarcely discernible. The bare notation of the tenor of these far-reaching edicts gives to the Occidental reader but a vague notion of the tremendous intellectual revolution which they connote. ''Never before was there such an order from any government involving the reconstruc- tion of the views of so many millions, by the study of the methods of government in other nations." For a long time it had been dimly perceived that some changes of this description were inevitable, and when they came, there was not only no formal protest on the part of the people, but in Shansi when a vote was taken among the students at the provincial capital by the conservatives, they found to their astonish- ment that eighty per cent of the students were in favor of western learning !
The majority of those who have the supreme control of China to-day are unhappily pro- foundly ignorant of the nature of the great problems which that empire has to solve, and still more so of the processes by which alone there is any rational hope of their solution. It is obvious to one who knows anything of the Chinese educational system of the past millennium, that the introduction of the new methods will involve its radical reconstruction
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 233
from top to bottom. Western geography, mathe- matics, science, history, and philosophy will be everywhere studied. The result cannot fail to be an expansion of the intellectual horizon of the Chinese race comparable to that which in Europe followed the Crusades. This will be a long process and a slow one, but it is a certain one. It is from this point of view that missionary education in China is seen in its true character. Every mission station is a dynamo, diffusing impartially in every direction light and heat. It is at once a spiritual, a moral, and an intellec- tual centre. In its schools pupils are educated, and not merely instructed ; the seeds of a new community are everywhere sown. From the Christian colleges now widely scattered over the face of the land young men are constantly going out with enlarged minds and with open vision. It is an instructive fact that it is only in Chris- tian schools that that patriotism in which the Chinese seem so strangely deficient is inculcated on principle. China will never have really patri- otic subjects until she has Christian subjects.
Educational Needs. — There is scarcely a branch of modern education which is not ur- gently needed. The Chinese need to know in detail something of the history of the world of which they seem but yesterday to have be- come an integral part, that they may have correct standards of comparison. They need thorough instruction in political economy and
234 REX CHRISTUS
its laws, and in every department of sociology. They need to know the underlying philosophy and principles of trade, that they may compre- hend and accept the proposition, incredible to them, that what is to the advantage of one may be to the advantage of all. They need espe- cially to study the laws of production, and ere long it will be necessary to ponder the laws of distribution. They need to examine scientifi- cally the incalculable resources at the disposal of the people, and to learn how to develop and employ them. They need to have the barren scholasticism of the learned, and the narrow utilitarianism of the uneducated classes, re- placed by real knowledge. They need medical teachingf to save innumerable lives and to dimin- ish the sum of human misery. In every direc- tion China needs the truth to make her free.
Christian education has produced some sweet first-fruits, out of all proportion to the number of workers. Until within a few years nine-tenths of the general knowledge which has been diffused throughout China, and ninety- nine hundredths of all the modern schools, are due to missionaries. In central China there are large and infl.uential Christian colleges in Shanghai, Soochow, and Nanking ; in south- eastern China at Foochow and Canton ; at Teng Chou Fu in Shantung, and in Peking and T'ung Chou in the metropolitan province of Chihli. In the capital of Shansi (T'ai Yuan Fu) there
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 235
is a unique government college founded with money which would otherwise have been ex- pended in missionary indemnities. Dr. Timothy Richard, at whose suggestion this step was taken, was placed in charge of this institution for a period of ten years, by the enlightened gov- ernor of Shansi. The government has already established provincial colleges in the capitals of eleven out of the eighteen provinces. The policy has been deliberately adopted of requir- ing from every student, upon penalty of ex- clusion, the formal worship of Confucius, which makes the services of Christian teachers and the attendance of Christian pupils impossi- ble. It is incidentally a testimony that the Chinese authorities have felt Confucianism to be in danger from the increasing encroachments of Christianity. It is not to be supposed that, because Confucian students are held aloof from immediate contact with Christian instructors and Christian text-books, that they can be alto- gether isolated (in medical phrase) so as to be beyond the reach of Christian influences of all sorts. Christian periodical literature is able to go where Christian feet cannot, and where the living voice cannot penetrate.
In direct work with Cliristian students, and in indirect relations with non-Christian students of all types, the International Young Men's and Young Women's Christian associations have a unique and a most important field. Their efforts
236 BEX CHBISTUS
are as yet but in their preparatory stages, but are rapidly growing in importance and power, so that the good which they will be able to accomplish, often in silent and unobtrusive ways, is inesti- mable. The United Society of Christian En- deavor is another agency peculiarly suited to Chinese habits, and it has wrapped within it a vast potentiality of good. Its great gatherings, attended by a choice company of Chinese youth, uniting in the use of the mandarin dialect as " the greatest common multiple " of this strange language, are a natural means of conveying spiritual impulses to widely separated regions, just as in other lands, but with perhaps far greater efficiency, on account of the freshness of the new life which has come into many hearts, and the absence of many of the other avenues by which, in Christian lands, that life can be outwardly manifested. The singular solidarity of the Chinese and their unrivalled talent for organization make it certain that forms of Chris- tian energy like those just mentioned will ere long be widely adopted, and must of necessity be extremely efficacious in multiplying the influ- ence of the church.
The New China. — The immense difficulties in the way of a practical regeneration of an empire like China must not for a moment be lost sight of nor minimized. Each one of them must ultimately be reckoned with, singly and in combination. But they have proved insuffi-
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 237
cient to stop the progress of a movement which has now attained to large proportions and will soon be far greater. It is to be anticipated that, at some perhaps not distant day, there may be a great movement toward Christianity. No human prevision can foresee how or when it will appear, nor what shape it may take. As has already been pointed out, on account of its mass, its homogeneity, its high intellectual and moral qualities, its past history, its present and prospective relations to the whole world, the con- version of the Chinese people to Christianity is the most important aggressive enterprise now laid upon the church of Christ. To reply to the numerous objections which are and have always been made is, for readers of a book like this, a mere waste of time. They have all been often answered, and are at this moment refuted by the actual work done. To abandon a field because new and unexpected difficulties have arisen is not in accord with the genius of Christianity. Merchants, surveyors of Chinese railways, and openers of its new mines are all liable to be overtaken by mobs and violence, yet they do not surrender their coveted conces- sions, and neither shall we. As compared with the expenditures of enterprises like these, and still more in comparison with the costly military disbursements, the total sum required for all the missions in the Chinese Empire is a mere trifle. In results achieved and achievable the returns
238 BEX CHRISTUS
to be expected from the latter far outweigh those which can, by any possibility, arise from the former. That there is to be commercially, industrially, and in some shape politically, a new China is certain. When such a population is really revolutionized, the whole world must be affected by the tremendous change. No more lands now remain to be discovered and peopled ; but as Dr. Josiah Strong well remarks, to raise the scale of living in China to the average standard in the United States, would be equiva- lent to the creation of five Americas. In mod- ern economics nothing is considered to be too expensive which is worth while. Ten millions of dollars are spent for a dam on the Nile, but in a short time — perhaps annually — it will repay its cost and make Egypt again the garden of the earth. A hundred or two millions of dollars are voted for a canal, but it is to alter the trade routes of the globe and bring, as never before, the Orient and the Occident face to face.
Money, labor, prayer, lavished upon the re- demption of the great Chinese Empire, in the end will yield ampler returns than can be looked for in any other land. Upon the people of the United States China has an especial claim. "Who is my neighbor?" China. Owing to her geographical position, if for no other reason, our country has never had any territorial disputes with her. The United States has no "conces- sions" to be protected at the open ports, no
TBE OPEN DOOlt OF OPPORTUNITY i23d
"spheres of influence," no "earth hunger." Our treatment of the Chinese in our own coun- try has been full of injustice, and of an undis- guised contempt for the principles upon which our republic is ostensibly founded. Do we not owe to the Chinese people practical reparation, in the gift of the fuller knowledge of that which shall help them to become, like ourselves, wise and strong ?
Perhaps it might be difficult to find in any land a class upon which more and greater bless- ings have been lavished than the women of the United States. But these great gifts are a loan, and, upon the principle enunciated by the Mas- ter, they only mean that by Him the more will be required, — assistance, sympathy, prayers for those in less favored lands. To our country- women the innumerable millions of Chinese women and children mutely and unconsciously appeal. "Freely ye have received, freely give."
Their experience of universal popular educa- tion gives American missionaries important ad- vantages, and a corresponding responsibility. Nearly all the large missionary colleges in China were built by American societies, and are taught by American teachers. It would be difficult to find anywhere positions of greater importance. China has many needs. She needs new intel- lectual life of every description in every fibre of the body politic. But she needs still more a new moral and spiritual life, without which a
240 BEX CHRISTUS
merely intellectual renaissance will be full of deadly perils. Every renovating force from within has long been exhausted, and more than exhausted. Her religions, her nature worship, her hero worship, her ethical traditions, are life- less and spent. Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization, she must have in ever in- creasing measure ; but apart from Christianity they are a Pandora box of potential evils. Aside from Christianity there is no visible hope for China. With it, after age-long slumbers, she will awake to a new life in a new world.
If this book does not lead up to the question in the mind of the reader, "What can I do for the redemption of China?" it will have been written and read in vain.
SIGNIFICANT SENTENCES
I admire and reverence those devoted men and women [the missionaries], and I regard them as taking to China precisely the commodities of which she stands most in need, namely, a spiritual religion and a morality based on the fear of God and the love of man. — Sir Edwin Arnold.
I went to the East with no enthusiasm as to missionary enterprise. I came back with the fixed conviction that missionaries are the great agents of civilization. I could not have advanced one step in the discharge of my duties, could not have read, or written, or understood one word of correspondence on treaty stipulation but for the mis- sionaries. — Hon. W. B. Rked, United States Commis- sioner.
THE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 241
There can be no doubt that while American commerce has been relatively declining in China, American missions have been relatively increasing. The factor of missions is to be reckoned with as much as the factor of trade. . . American missionaries have been free from the suspicion of acting as political allies ; and they thus possess a de- cided advantage in attracting the natives to an honest acceptance of the Christian religion. — Forum, April, 1899.
We cannot think of withdrawing our missionaries from the Far East unless we are willing to withdraw our mer- chants. Our ministers of the gospel must remain as long as our ministers of diplomacy. — Hon. John Barrett.
Should he [a voyager] be shipwrecked on an unknown coast, he will devoutly pray that the missionary may have preceded him. — Charles Darwin.
Everything that has been done for the blind in China, or any other eastern land, has been done by missionaries. Miss Gordon Cumming said she was astonished, when visiting Peking, to stand at the door of a dark room and hear the Scriptures read by the touch of men who, not four months before, begged in the streets, half naked and half starved. The missionary has done this work alone, from his slender income, boarding, lodging, and clothing his pupils.
Until one travels from Canton to Kalgan and takes long journeys into the interior, one cannot realize the extent of this wonderful work, or the resourcefulness of the missionaries. Nor can one realize the hold which the missionary has upon the future of China. He has not only established churches and planted schools; he has written books and translated other books, and intro- duced western ai'ts and sciences, and pioneered the way for commerce and civilization. . . . The missionary is
B
242 BEX CHRISTU8
unsealing the Chinaman's ears, tliat he may hear the tramp of the advancing nations of the twentieth century.
— Dr. F. E, Clark.
I believe the advancement of civilization, the extension of commerce, the increase of knowledge in art, science, and literature, the promotion of civil and religious liberty, the development of countries rich in undiscovered min- eral and vegetable wealth, are all intimately identified with, and to a much larger extent than most people are aware of, dependent upon, the work of the missionary; and I hold that the missionary has done more to civilize and to benefit the heathen world than any or all other agencies ever employed. — Alexander Mc Arthur, M.P.
This is the crack of doom for Paganism.
— Dr. W. a. p. Martin, on the Boxer uprising.
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain; O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train. — Reginald Heber.
Lo, these shall come from far ; and lo, these from the north and from the M'est; and these from the land of Sinim. — Isaiah.
THEMES FOR STUDY OR DISCUSSION
I. China in Convulsion.
ir. Kuang Hsu and His Schemes for Reform. HI. Ladies of the Legations at the Court of the
Empress Dowager. IV. Li Hung Chang and Other Eminent Viceroys. V. Chinese Scholars and Statesmen in the United States. VI. The United States as a JMaker and Breaker of Treaties with China.
TUE OPEN DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY 243
VII. Russia's Occupation of Manchuria. VIII. The " Yellow Peril " and the " Yellow Hope." IX. Men of Might who have shaped the Future of China. X. How Missions have Helped in Diplomacy, Phi- lanthropy, and Social Progress. XI. Outlook for Chinese Women in the Twentieth
Century. XII. Coordination of Christian Forces in China.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE
General References as before
Bishop's " The Yangtze Valley and Beyond." XI, XII. Bryson's "John Kenneth Mackenzie." IX, X. Condit's " The Chinaman as We see Him." V, VI. Chang Chih Tung's " China's Only Hope." IV, V, VIH. Colquhoun's " China in Transformation." I, VII, VIII. Coltman's " The Chinese." X.
Creegan's " Great Missionaries of the Church." IX. » Crisis in China." VIII, IX.
Curzon's " Problems of the Far East." II, III, VIII, IX. Douglas's " Li Hung Chang." IV. Gibson's " The Chinese in America." V, VI. Gilmour's " Among the Mongols." IX, X, XII. Hake's " The Story of Chinese Gordon." IX. Johnston's " China and Its Future." IX, X, XII. Ketler's " The Tragedy of Paotingfu." IX, XII. Lawrence's " Modern Missions in the East." IX, X. Leonard's "A Hundred Years of Missions." IX, X. Lewis's " Educational Conquest of the Far East." IV,
X, XIL Mackay's " From Far Formosa." IX, Nevius's « Life of John L. Nevius." IX. Report of the Ecumenical Missionary Conference, 1900.
rv, V, IX, X, XI, XII.
244 BEX CHEISTUS
Robson's " Griffith John." IX.
Smith's " China in Convulsion." I.
Speer's " The Oldest and the Newest Empire." VI.
Speer's " Missions and Politics in Asia." X.
Wilson's " China." IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X.
Articles on China in Periodicals (see Appendix) : —
Contemporary, Vol. 73, "How China may yet be Saved."
I, VII. Fortnightly, Vol. 44, " The Youngest of the Saints." IX. Forum, Vol. 14, "A Chinaman on Our Treatment of
China." VI.
APPENDIX
LEADING MISSIONARY PERIODICALS
Assembly Herald (Pres.), U. S.
Baptist Missionary Magazine (A. B. M. U.), U. S.
Chronicle London Missionary Society, England.
Church Missionary Intelligencer (C. M.S.), England.
Foreign Missionary Tidings (Pres.), Canada.
Friends' Missionary Advocate (Friends), U.S.
Helping Hand ( W. B. F. M. S.), U. S.
Life and Light for TFo?Han ( Woman's Board, Cong.), U. S.
Messenger and Record (Pres.), England.
Mission Studies (Board of Interior, Cong.), U.S.
Missionary Gleaner (Dutch Reformed), U. S.
Missionary Herald (Baptist), England.
Missionary Herald (Cong.), U. S.
Missionary Link (Woman's Union), U. S.
Missionary Outlook (M. E.), Canada.
Missionary Review of the World (Interdenominational),
U.S. Missionary Tidings (Christian), U.S. Spirit of Missions (P. E. Church), U.S.
Woman''s Missionary Friend (M. E.), U. S.
Wo7nan's Work for Wo7nan (Pres.), U. S.
Woman's Missionary Magazine (United Free Church), Scotland.
Women's Missionary Magazine (U. P.), U. S.
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS
[Owing to the complex international situation in China, the number of valuable magazine articles concerning that country, since the memorable summer of 1900, is unusu-
246
246 BEX CHRISTUS
ally large. Besides the few mentioned below, the student should consult the files of denominational papers, and publications like the Outlook, to which Dr. Smith is a regular contributor. — F. J. D.]
Atlantic, Sept., 1900, " Russia's Interest in China." Oct., 1900, "The Crisis in China." Jan., 1901, "The Empress Dowager." Dec, 1902, " Chinese Dislike of Christianity."
Century, Dec, 1900, " The Struggle on the Peking Wall." Jan., 1901, "Besieged in Peking." Mar., 1901, " Flight of the Empress Dowager." May, 1901, " A Missionary Journey in China." Sept., 1902, " A Visit to the Empress Dowager."
Contemporary, July, 1900, " A Scramble for China." Aug.,
1900, " Who's Who in China." Oct., 1900, " Our Future Policy in China." June, 1902, " The Genius of China."
Fortnightly, June, 1900, " The Last Palace Intrigue at Peking." Aug., 1900, « Peking — and After." Feb.,
1901, " China and Non-China." May, 1901, " China, Reform, and the Powers."
Forum, July, 1900, " Chinese Civilization : The Ideal and the Actual." Nov., 1900, " Taming of the Dragon."
Harper, Oct., 1900 (1) " Wei Hai Wei," (2) " The Chinese Resentment." Jan., 1903, " Chinese and Western Civilization" (by Wu Ting Fang).
Nineteenth Century, July, 1900, "Our Vacillation in China and Its Consequences."
North American, July, 1900, " Mutual Helpfulness be- tween China and the United States."
Review of Reviews, Sept., 1900, " Can China be Saved?" Jan., 1901, " Foreign Missions in the Twentieth Cen- tury." Mar., 1902, " Practical Missions." May, 1902, " Return of the Court from Peking " (from Revue de Paris). July, 1902, "System of Modern Colleges for China."
APPENDIX 247
LIST OF TWENTY BOOKS ^
At Moderate Prices, Most Useful in Course ok Study on China
General Works
"Dawn on the Hills of T'ang." Harlan P. Beach.
Student Vol. N.Y. ^0.75. " Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom." United Soc.
C. E., Boston. $0.50.
People and Life
"Home Life in China." M. I. Bryson. American Tract
Society, N.Y. f 1.00. " Chinese Characteristics." A. H. Smith. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $1.25. "China: Travels in the Middle Kingdom." James H.
Wilson. Appleton, N.Y. $1.75.'"
Mission Work
"John Kenneth Mackenzie." M. L Bryson. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $1.50. " The Cross and the Dragon." B. C. Henry. Randolph,
N.Y. $1.00. " China and the Chinese." John L. Nevius, Pres. Board,
Phil. $0.75. "Mission Methods in Manchuria." John Ross. Revell
Co., N.Y. $1.00.
History
"China" (Story of the Nations Series). R. K.Douglas.
Putnam, N.Y. $1.50. "A Cycle of Cathay." W. A. P. Martin. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $2.00.
1 Several desirable books are excluded from this list on account of their high price. Secure, if possible, other books mentioned at the close of each chapter.
248 BEX CHRISTUS
Present Political Situation
"China's Only Hope." Chang Chih Tung. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $0.75. "Missions and Politics in Asia." Robert E. Spear.
Revell Co., N.Y. ^1.00. " The Crisis in China." Harper Bros., N.Y. $1.00.
The Boxer Uprising
" Fire and Sword in Shansi." E. H. Edwards. Revell
Co., N.Y. $1.50. "The Tragedy of Paotingfu." I. C. Ketler. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $2.00.
Religious and Educational
" Confucianism and Taoism." R. K. Douglas. Nelson,
N.Y. $1.00. " The Educational Conquest of the Far East." Robert
E. Lewis. Revell Co., N.Y. $1.00. "Two Heroes of Cathay." Luella Miner. Revell Co.,
N.Y. $1.00.
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INDEX
Abeel, David, 136, 168, 186. Allen, Y. J., 193. Amherst, Lord, 133. Amoy, 27, 32, 139. Ancestral worship, 80, 88. Anhui, 36. Ann Arbor, 183. Antiquity, 1, 12, 121. Area, 2.
Arnold, Edwin, 240. Ashmore, Dr., 141. Audience question, 186.
Baldwin, Mrs., 81, 169.
Bamboo, 7.
Barrett, John, 241.
Beach, H. P., 215.
Bible societies, 174, 191 ; trans- lations, 132, 144 ; women, 174.
Bishop, Isabella Bird, 180, 216.
Blake, Lady, 172.
Blind, 161.
Blodget, Henry, 148.
Books, bamboo, 11; Buddhist, 67 ; destruction of, 14 ; ency- clopaedia, 23 ; "of Changes," 57,59; "Shuo Wen," 15, 19; 60, 62, 78, 131, 156, 194, 215, 235.
Boone, Dr., 143.
Boulger, D. C, 115.
Boxers, 64, 78, 125, 160, 192, 198, 206 et seq., 224, 226.
Brewster, Mr. and Mrs., 161.
Bridgmaa, E. C, 136, 144.
Brown, S. R., 158.
Buddhism, 15, 17, 61, 67 et seq.
Burns, W. C, 141.
Cambridge Band, 151. Canals, 5; Grand, 21, 30, 31. Canton, 27, 33, 127, 137, 198. Chang Chih Tung, 116, 209. Channiug, Blanche M., 164. Chao, Mrs., 178. Chef 00, 31, 33, 149, 161. Chekiang, 19, 32, 124, 216. Chentung Liang Cheng, 39. Chihli, 5, 23, 29, 149, 207, 216. Christian Associations, 202,235;
Endeavor, 202, 236. Chu Fu-tze, 55. Chu Hsi, 19, 36. Ch'img Ch'ing, 35. Clarke, F. E., 242. Classics, 17, 19, 20, 141. Climate, 6.
Colleges, 148, 234, 239. Combs, Dr., 180. Conceit, 8, 26, 126. Confucius, 12, 16, 31, 44 et seq.
Sayings of, 80 ; 96, 175. Conservatism, 9(5, 101. Cooper, T. T., 107. Cumming, Miss Gordon, 241. Customs service, 147.
Darwin, Charles, 241. Denby, Charles, 163, 217. Diffusion Society, 194, 205, 214. Dispensaries, 159. Distrust, 104. Door of Hope, 183. Dragon, 61 ; Throne, 22. Dudgeon, Dr., 148, 187. Dynasties, Chou, 11, 59; Han, 14, 227; Hsai, 10; Manchu,
253
254
INDEX
25; Ming, 21, 122; Mongol, 20,68,122; Sui,21,67; Sung, 19, 32, 68: T'ang, 4, 16, 51, 68. 76 ; Tsin, 13.
East India Co., 127, 129, 132, 138.
Edkins, Mr., 148.
Education, 144. 168, 194, 234.
Emperors, Chia Ch'ing, 26; Ch'ien Lung, 26; Ch'in Shili Huang, 13 ; Chu Muan Cliang, 21; Hsieu Feng, 28; K'ang Hsi, 25, 70 ; Kao Tsung, 17 ; Kuang Hsu, 117, 204, 231; Ming Ti, 67; P'ing Ti, 14; Shun, 10; Tai Tsung, 17; Tao Kuang, 27; T'ung Chih, 28; Yang Ti, 21; Yao, 10; " YeUow," 15 ; Yung Clieng, 26.
Faber, Ernst, 54, 62, 195, 205.
" Face," 107.
Famine, 6; Groat, 187, 228.
Farming, metliods of, 4.
"Feng-shui," 9.
Fitcli, G. F., 197.
Five Relations, 47, 55, 89, 104.
Foochow, 27, 32, 139, 169, 193,
198. Food supply, 6. Foot-binding, 18, 173, 202. Foreigners, sentiment toward,
94, 206. Formosa, 27, 32. Forum, 241.
Foster, Mrs. Arnold, 217. Fukien, 32, 95, 161, 200, 216. Fulton, A. A., 202; Mary H.,
184.
Gamble, "William, 196. Genghis Khan, 20. " Glad Tidings Village," 189. Gordon, Charles George, 28. Gracey, J. T., 40.
Graham, J. M., 219. Griffin, Lepel, 81.
Hangchow, 19, 32, 149. Hankow, 36, 192. Headland, Dr. 176. Heber, Reginald, 242. Herodotus of China, 15. Hobson, Dr., 138. Holcombe, Chester, 167. Honan, 36.
Hong Kong, 33, 144, 172, 198. Hospitals, 137, 159, 182. Howard, Dr., 180. Howe, Julia Ward, 162. Hue, Abbe', 120, 123, 155. Hu King Eng, 182. Hunan, 35, 76, 149, 203. Hunt, P. R., 198. Hupeh, 36, 216.
Ideographs, 3, 11.
Immigrants, 23, 33.
India, 6, 67, 127, 135, 189, 221.
Indirection, 103.
Industry, 90.
Infanticide, 58.
Ink invented, 15.
Insincerity, 105.
Irishmen of China, 33.
Itinerating, 156.
Japan, 13, 16, 28, 59, 137, 199.
Jesuits, 60, 123.
Jews, 15, 49.
John, Griffith, 149, 193.
Kahn, Ida, 173, 183. Kansuh, 38, 76. Kerr, Dr., 161, 183. Kiangsu, 31, 216. Kindergartens, 175. Kipling, 41. Kuang Hsu, 231. Kuangsi, 33, 36, 70. Kuangtung, 27, 33, 123, 216. Kuan Yin, 74.
INDEX
255
Kublai Khan, 20, 122, Ku Ch'eng, 33, 200. Kueichou, 34. Kung, Prince, 28. Kuo Sung Tao, 188.
Lao-tze, 59, 62.
Legge, Dr., 51, 54.
Liang A-fa, 134.
Li Hung Chang, 30, 36, 52, 54,
155, 180. Literature, 15, 17, 18, 26, 194. Little, Mrs., 117, 202. Liu, Deacon, 160. Lockhart, William, 138, 148. Loess, 5, .37. London Times, 40. Lui K'un Yi, 209.
Hacao, 33, 130.
Madison, James, 129.
Mail, China, 185.
Manchuria, 6, 24, 28, 38, 64, 152, 187, 201, 207, 216.
Marco Polo, 20.
Marsh, Dr., 81.
Martin, W. A. P., 48, 71, 149, 242.
Ma Tuan Lin, 19.
McArthur, Alexander, 242.
McKenzie, Dr., 148.
Meadows, T. T., 139.
Medhurst, W. H., 135, 142, 144.
Medical work, 179.
Mencius, 12, 31, 55, 70.
Mills, Mrs., 161.
Milne, Robert, 131, 144.
Minerals, 8, 34.
Missions, Am. Board, 136, 152, 169, 198 ; Baptist, 141, 1(59, 177, 189, 195; China Inland, 150, 198 ; Episcopal, 142, 149, 169, 198; Reformed, 142 ; German, 141 ; London, 128, 152 ; Meth- odist, 142, 150, 169, 180, 187 ; 198; Presbyterian, 38, 140, 143, 149, 152, 169, 182, 187,
196, 198, 199; Roman Cath- olic, 121, 188; Union, 169.
Mohammedanism, 18, 53, 76 o.t seq.,22-2.
Mongolia, 20, 68.
Monte Corvino, 121. ^jfMorrison, Robert, 129, 140, 191.
Muirhead, William, 142, 149, 218.
Nanking, 22, 27, .31, 140, 149. Napoleon, 39; "of China," 13. Native Christians, 210, 225. Neandor, 39. Nestorians, 37. 120, 222. Nevius, J. L., 149. Niles, Mary, 183. Ningpo, 27, 32, 139, 197. North American Review, 162.
01jT)hant, Mr., 136. Opium, 27, 37, 90, 160.
Pao Ting Fu, 30.
Paper money, 18.
Parker, Peter, 1.37.
Parliament of Religions, 5, 97.
Patriotism, 95.
Peking, 2, 20, 24, 28, 30, 63, 127, 148, 173, 186, 198, 231; Ga- zette, 18, 53, 54; University, 198.
Peng Kuang Yu, 52, 97, 108.
Persecutions, 199, 208.
Plain, Great, 6, 31, 36, 38, 85.
Population, 2, 14, 17, 84, 221.
Poverty, 58, 90, 92, 158.
Prince, of Peace, 14; of litera- ture, 18.
Printing presses, 133, 192, 196, 214.
Provinces, 29.
Queue, 64.
Railroads, 30, 31, 35, 38, 203. Ralph, Julian, 40.
256
INDEX
Ramazan fast, 76.
Reed, W. B., 240.
Reforms, 29, 35, 203, 230.
Reid, Gilbert, 39.
Ricci, Matthew. 123.
Ricbard, Timothy, 69, 189, 195,
215. Rivers, 2, 21, 30, 33, 37. Roberts, Dr., 148. Roman Catholics, 206, 222. Russia, 31, 38.
Salt wells, 9, 35. Schools, 17, 150, 157, 169, 171,233. Secret sects, 77 et seq., 222. Seward, G. F., 163; W. H., 41. Shanghai, 27, 30, 32, 135, 139,
172, 183, 188, 190, 196. Shansi, 5, 9, 23, 37, 95, 188, 207,
232. Shantung, 12, 23, 31, 38, 95,
135, 149, 226. Shensi, 37, 76, 189. Si Ngan Fu, 29, 37, 121. Singapore, 137, 168. Smith, Mrs. A. H., 171; Moses,
80. ,
Solidarity, 85. Soochow, 31, 149. Speer, William, 115. Ssuch'uan, 9, 35, 149, 199, 213. Stewart, Mr., 200. Stone, Mary, 182. Stronach, 144. Strong, Josiah, 238. Superstitions, 63. Suspicion, 104. Swatow, 18, 33, 141.
T'ai P'ing Rebellion, 27, 31, 34, 36, 135, 140, 143.
T'ai Shan, 31.
Taoism, 59 et seq.
Tartars, 19, 23.
Taylor, J. H., 150 ; Mrs. F. H.,
218. Temples, 53, 67, 72; Temple
Bar, 115. Three Kingdoms, 16, 67. Tientsin, 30, 54, 145, 148, 154,
180. Titus, Mrs. E. C, 217. Tract societies, 191, 198. Training schools, 177. Treaties, 145. Tuan Fang, 209.
Unity, 50, 89, 142, 222, 225. University, Peking, 149, 198;
Tientsin, 102. Untruthfulness, 105.
Valignani, 122, 128.
Wall, Great, 13, 38.
War, methods of, 12; with France, 28 ; with Great Brit- ain, 146; with Japan, 28, 32, 203 ; Opium, 27.
Wei Hai Wei. 31,
Williams, S. W., 16, 21, 27, 37, 52, 136, 188.
Williamson, Dr., 182, 194, 218.
Woman's work, 167.
Woodhull, H. C, 163.
Woolston sisters, 170.
Worthley, Evelyn, 81.
Wu, Mrs. 180.
Yates, Dr. and Mrs., 143. Yuan Shih K'ai, 209. Yunnan, 34.
5 241 3
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